Flat out on a hillock,
we’d lie in wait
for perspective shifts,
the great curve,
the rolling of the earth.
Nothing so much
disturbed our view
of high-altitude jet streaks,
cumulus hatching into
the far sky’s
inverted geography.
Amongst ambitions
flitting and darting
across the flight paths
of swallows, we’d plot
dispersal routes, ways out
through bracken beds –
not back up the lane
but over fenced land
where cattle hulked
and lives in future tense
took shape with all
the fixity of vapour.
