It’s light when I leave for home.
Steadily winter dark’s pushed back.
Too soon to say for sure
but grass fronds are inching clear
of leaf litter scrapping over
the lawns of redbrick houses.
This might be spring’s anteroom.
On lately drenched floodplains,
the sheen of water’s receding
and hawks that moved in
on spruce-fringed gardens,
traffic islands – forced close
by hard frosts – return
to scoping open fields.
There’s a way to go yet.
Tree shadows umbrella
the patches where
there are crocus
when you turn the corner,
there are headlines,
there are fag butts.
You’re distracted.
And I was trying to say,
this might have been the gate
where, years ago, I stood
and the industry of it
