Labyrinth

The Labyrinth

“Jabbered hedge-bank

judgments”—Ted Hughes

“Error,” Birthday Letters

______________________

Surrounded by stump-warts—

Estranged by brambly strangeness

Like entering a dark age dialect—

Peering into a sunken labyrinth

A leaking thatch-drip roof—

A sunken dark church next door

Like some low tide Lyonesse—

Scudding clouds, submarine trees

Huddled knee-deep in quag—

Rainy streets testing my limits

Throbbing gutters, squandering sewers

Searching for the Taw and the sea

I felt it flowing through me—

Sloughing soundlessly underground

Centuries of bog-mire, quagmire—

Morass-marsh and swamp-time