Terranea
only ever gets sunnier
and beyond the gate
there are great places to eat.
Subterranea
is firmer, stonier.
There's little room
but lots of time.
On the surface-skin,
a mistress of wind plays pan-
pipes over the mouths
of ginger beer bottles. Light lathes.
And in the vein,
the icy ladder I jerked down.
The white root of my body joins
my circumstance to flint mines.
Above:
Ministry of Defence training land. Jove
the Thunderer Sun arousing the fizz
of grasshoppers. His sexy heatgauze.
And beneath:
Neolithic excavation, an Earth
scooped out like ice cream. Wet
rock, wet ferns, marine light.
Overhead:
the plague of cinnabar caterpillars beard-
ing beards of burdock, chestnut necks,
the rill and trill of skylarks.
And underfoot:
another kind of night.
