Tarn and Wall and other poems

Tarn and Wall

I’d set out in sun to reach that shore –
   the climb’s surprise
among the higher fells, its wide-open eye
  a bowl of ice-melt
brimful, sky-struck, a cup for the gods –
   but found instead
this Damascene stop – a blindness sudden
  as the unread rock    

of a sheltering wall topped with slate –
   each upright blade
a transverse fipple to the wind’s ways
   each hearting-stone
a keeping lock to baffle the rain’s
   crosswise slam
and a driven pashm of mist everywhere
   infilling the visible –
...