It was a black-lattice,
bud-nipped, poison-veined
January day
Wind-jawed, ice-burnt diamonds
smacked his face,
as he walked the furrows
alone with the mud
The marble-slewed tilth
a wet ton
sinus cleansing,
pecked
turned up with pence and stones -
the fragments of light archeology
His laughing teary eye
bent on sustaining the task,
wind-whipped hair and gritted teeth -
a mazard of Cornish angst
The field from above was
a broken spirograph
of plough turns
ins and outs after
the flinching shires,
with the peripheral spook
of winter’s shadow
threatening in the wings
And as a blackbird sings after rain,
his heart rejoiced at an acre a day -
while the notion of a soul
warmed his outlook
Then, the geese called him home.
unhitched, the trio plod
into a grey and yellowing
twighlight
***
"Ins and outs" - are the clear marks in the tilth where a plough has been dropped to commence a furrow - then lifted to enable a return run