Not a Poem on the Wye

            Lines Composed a Few Decades Below Tintern Abbey

                   Hay-on-Wye, Powys Wales July 1991

I cannot add a word.

Poets have worked this turf, hard, for centuries,

Illuminating all possible texts.

At every picturesque spot along the summer banks,

Where lime leaves make sun plates,

Pinked baby hands palming the light in every vein;

Or where a branch drips

A dazing splatter of coin into the stream;

Where the river tells a story at the feet,

The chill lyric of fishes;

Where slate under curtains of water

Polishes into slate for the roofs;

Where brief birds chitter in eroding castle walls --

There since old time

Rests the bench of painter and poet,

Graceful hoops long bent upon the view.

When on a lone walk in the hedge-rows

After a time disappeared from downs

I long for evidence of sister, of kind,

Just then a sheep offers a plaintive bleat as on behalf,

Honeysuckle the scent of milk.

The crow croons soft Welsh,

A stern nurse adoring tender nurslings.

The roses tumble with wet,

The peonies bow purple into green,

Royals resting among common buttercups.

Though each separate bloom breathes light

It is all said, I cannot get my word's worth:

Run of willow, dogrose, lambsquarter,

coltsfoot, tansy ragwort, cinquefoil,

Susan loosestrife on the River Wye.