Pale grass
a long flag
striped once by the river,
the one
wandering blue star
of the heron.
In the light’s early silence
the farmers crank the old box Ford
full of chickens. The cock croaks,
he has counted his wives,
some are missing,
plucked and stiffening
under the market awning. Nothing else
but a pheasant’s stuttering,
a distant bell sound. I see
in the starry river
the keel mark.
Tightened into the bank’s
wooded side under the steep
hill’s stone shadow
a Viking boat
is still vanishing.