A crow in flight grazes the grass dried
soon after indifferent rain over that pale
English greenness through a clay grey light
unlikely beginnings of a May fearing
the still unknown skating summer
Other birds stream along the time-line
of this day Along the line
of light the dense crow flies unhurt
like the black man roller skating a stripe along
the green of the afternoon bending
across the glazed air against its core
flung from the sphere that sheltered
(skater stirring vertebrae,
body of crow) the summer’s spine
Kensington Gardens II
I no longer believe in the power
of abstract images The loneliness
of the park is emptiness also
in language’s worn out grass