LANDACRE BRIDGE

Here the pencil river winds
And draws the naked valley lines,
One silver seam in woollen brown,
Or fishing-wire dropped so far down
Through foggy blue in murky sand,
To wrinkle folds in felted land.

So thin a wire, so deep a cleft
That’s cut so far to leave bereft
Once sodden banks, now dry, alone,
High mountains, old so that the bones
Of rock stab through the dusty grey
Of grass, and bleach themselves with day.

Skeleton moor, in winter clad
Seems yet so proud and smiling, glad
To look so bleak when secrets lie
Of life in grass, river, and sky.
And men sense here they’re not alone
So here they built a bridge of stone.