Like As the Blackbird

 

Like As the Blackbird

 

 

Like as the blackbird uproots the sparrow

who offers temerity as occupied space,

so do you, one unsown day, stride the narrow

Cornish quiet lanes, strewn like straw – make haste

while the sun burns golden fields fallow.

On the right flood tides have swollen Truro River,

placid she lies, satisfied, hardly a contraction –

‘Push,’ you think, ‘Let’s see action,’

for nothing so deep can ever be empty,

scoped troughs disclose her horn of plenty

where Lady Mary Killigrew’s ghost mans sentry.

So, now, here’s a dog – a real beast – carnivore

that snaps your leash between his jaws,

not one of your crawling mops – arrow straight,

he leaps out to symphonies, a dreadnought,

an iron spine, a bulwark cutting barely a wake,

who yields at last to his master’s voice.

Rounding the bend – as if there ever was choice –

come across at last those squat dwellings

that bed themselves into rocks, hang off cliffs

like a crooked mouth full of milk-teeth

in need of dentist, tooth fairy or both maybe,

rest awhile, sip beer, look to see that same blackbird

harrying near, ‘Release! Let slip! Take flight!’

It’s but a fancy – but even as the day becomes night,

let Robert Culliford push open floodgates and write.