Carol Watts

Zeta Landscape

 

1

the feeding of one into the landscape results
in a climbing to infinity this opens the labour of a day
the task is to find a distribution of fields
and from these the truth of this place: hill common
in its own pitch said rhos y breidden
and from this one point sines of all hills and valleys
as if pastoral could predict them by counterintuitive
measure in the dark meadow its starless spectrum
at night where the ram is sleeping its breath
barely rising the mound is a shadow the reservoir
pumped down under the hill leading to a thought
of depth or scarcity and thinness the land is not
what it should bei in light the same terrain lifts
falls watch waters burst a spectacular strung
balloon spraying other coordinates which emerge
drip pinkly at some distance under brush and detached
in the spinney are cauterised by maternal licking
just under ten steps north no frost made safe
on this occasion not infinite enough for cosmology

 

2

sort them one from another without intention
some bred for stoicism the patterning of others
a question of love or wildness of taste coats
spun out of the earth a spattered patchwork
refusing use values ringstraked they are here
and not here smelling of sons and fathers
it is a multiplyingx which is an addition to stock
it is an addition which speaks of multiplicity
the impossibility of knowing what takes place
on a dark night as an occasion driven to happen
without prohibition a sowing unbidden
a noiseless bellowing or unconcerned in full light
carrying out its business adding to the ratio
this hornwork is predictable two whorls the bones
of nebulae or four the spokes of chariot wheels
in vistavision authentically biblical or ammonites
caught on the cliff top versus needle whelks
calcifications already landlocked budding
in slates of sunlight such geological discriminations

 

3

the further east the louder the note waking early
to orchestras of demand not quite synchronous
as a swarm is knowing the constancy of waiting
has its consequences the muscle of congregating
number 37 sings what is a welln shot down for survival
like a reed for breathing but a diaphragm the voice
of a threshing box the dust of a dry winter hacking
in sleet siphoning nothing from the season but a hope
of retrieval when rain comes the sounding is keener
rounded the notes higher and youthful chiming
without understanding the balance of need is a way
distant three arrive and only one can be cared for
latching on quickly two must come to another trust
in formulae teats stretched over beer bottles
they push behind the knees an urgency of recognition
immediate undomestic and will run in search of it
for the shortness of their time tails wheeling
given to heliotactics in advance of the sunlight
when not sleeping on the well lid testing the hollowness
of drumming and small games of lordship

 

5

now it is evening cobalt is always the colour drawing
thin in a cold season it shades to black where
there are no interruptions no shadows no moon
but the sounds of settling no planes no interference
where feet fall they meet other algorithms like
a walking in the darki where space kicks back do you lose
gravity find new ligaments as the ground falls away
requiring lengthening is it louder out there
or does something hum by the fence seven leagues out
on a smaller scale straddling terraces of frost and erosion
you stumble now evening is advancing the day has long
burnt off the tar of this night is heavy how high
it has to rise before obsidian is its glass equal to
the depth of a footfall testing the reach of limbs
no shadows no moon but the sounds of settling
light is a line for census taking an articulation of eyes
picking out a secret circuitry the blur of after images
as if traffic passes even here hold your hand across
the mouth of a torch one two three four five sounds

 

7

do these add up are they outside subsidy or
logged in magnitudes of adjustment the value
of a warm animal less than the cost of quantifying
its warmth or inspecting animation each sixteen
days the collisions of neighbouring hillsides result
today in corpses by the river seven blown fleeces
are not attached in the accumulation of vicinities
unexpected frequencies remain unburied without
passports and stray shreds of spacen without linkage
the value of a warm animal and its full belly brought
down out of the night calling persistently is twenty
pounds which is the value of each of seven bodies
rotting by the river why they rot by the river is
an equation of this order defining the square
of the distance between two infinitely proximate
points step east half a step fourteen north and a line
discovers itself organised in randomness he says
adversity is interesting dyna fo she says another
arriving track a line of warm and cold animals