A hundred miles from home, by the road
the crow’s heavy alighting, the first buds
of spring yellowing towards the south.
My name is Stickincraw, my black looks
a mirror of the landscape, all around me
the same rain-stippled misery, northern uplands
I have prowled grinding out my excuses,
my fury at dumb rocks, sheep, bracken,
my short and stocky people, always a wild
mad strand of hair in the long east wind,
all my days it seems. Oh I worked,
mending wall, hedging and ditching
with my father’s tools. But the worm
is in them now, and I am leaving.