Time out of mind this evening -
the hare crouched in her form,
the furrows' sockets of flint.

A last dog's whistled home
from ground that once
was called after someone;

an acre of average loss -
the common prayer of the wheat,
the rush hour as far away as the river

where that young girl went missing,
her night things tumbled over and over
in the treacherous weir.

That was before the war before last . . .
Boundaries of parish and family
dissolve in the hiss of this rain -

Lady's Smock, Meadowsweet, Wild Angelica -
the old lace of their names
edging the dark.

A last dog's whistled home
from ground that once
was called after someone;

an acre of average loss -
the common prayer of the wheat,
the rush hour as far away as the river

where that young girl went missing,
her night things tumbled over and over
in the treacherous weir.

That was before the war before last . . .
Boundaries of parish and family
dissolve in the hiss of this rain -

Lady's Smock, Meadowsweet, Wild Angelica -
the old lace of their names
edging the dark.