Sunday walk

May is out
white blossom everywhere
and I’ve cast a layer or two
of winter clout

I came this way a day ago
and thought I heard a flock of angry geese
it was the screech of machinery
a tractor and plough

today harrows
have broken up the clods
and shattered stalks of maize
litter the furrows

white drifts of stitchwort
in the narrow field-margin
vetch and speedwell
buttercup and herb-robert

I pick up a Fanta can
pour out the lurid dregs
whose twelve ingredients
include a source of phenylalanine

Gate Lane
we walked this way to school
new buildings on both sides now
but the queen-anne’s-lace remains