Along the Norfolk Broads
the windmills are dying,
their monkish caps blown away,
their crossed arms broken.
In the churches, too, with beams
eaten by worm and beetle
the cross is only a curiosity.
The arms of Christ are broken.
Wind bending the reeds apart,
sails travel the old route
to the sea. Thistledown crosses
the wide water. Inland, lorries
wrapped in their own fumes
rumble down roads to no place.
Across the sky soft clouds of
England erase time,
time as we still name it
Anno Domini. Passing we stare
at churches where no one kneels
and windmills lost to the wind.