Two Sections from EXCAVATIONS

I
Monpazier relinquished a noble axe,
Lightly bedded in an ochre pavement.

HoIwell ruffled her ponds, lent an ammonite:
I tighten a mesolithic hand, follow a spiral,

Beat out the boundaries of withered oceans,
Quarry for silence under austere skies.

Land pulls down her unworked galleries,
Gathers her secret filaments.

There are gifts for the hacked acres;
Return is made, here where wind weeps ash,

The dump smoulders. Her stomach rises;
Fumes are exhaled from life's refusals.

A numinous machine in Monster Field
Chokes her gullet on a tip of spoil.

We annotate the scriptures of the hills
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