Adjustments
We make almost all the decisive steps in our lives
as a result of slight inner adjustments of which
we are barely conscious. W G Sebald
1
At this time of year
when the ash keys purport
to be redwings
the passages of one’s life
– whether long or short –
appear narrow, almost tidal.
2
I am on a mission you might say,
a journey between winter fields.
I am wearing the wrong boots;
water is seeping through the eyelets.
3
A pylon with starlings.
And what are the chances
they will form a slick,
a seething murmuration?
4
Repurposed and inverted
the fingerpost reveals a footpath sign
now pointing the way to the underworld.
5
Grown older, I am revising
my view on the circular route
as the only worthwhile journey.
There and back afford contrast,
the wind in your good ear now
and the sea below
surging, rippling, slopping.
6
Because a goose hoots like a steam train,
because a road in the sun is a lake,
because the poplar leaves gush like a stream,
because a chance encounter is a lucky break
I keep my ear to the air, lift my eyes above the hedge line.
It will be alright.
Stephen Boyce is the author of three poetry collections, Desire Lines (Arrowhead 2010), The Sisyphus Dog (Worple 2014) and The Blue Tree (Indigo Dreams 2019) and three pamphlets. He is co-founder of Winchester Poetry Festival and lives in north Dorset. stephenboycepoetry.com
Comments