Teach Yourself Mapmaking

Jane Routh

£7.95
978-1-902382-80-7

A POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION

KEEPING AN EYE

Dusk. The young geese shut up for the night,
boots on the doorstep and the keys hung up.
A light at the top of the wood across the valley:
no track there. The beam wavers between the trunks.

Watching the neighbours I said, when the man
selling binoculars asked. I should have said
For birds or For when I’m at sea.
He looked at me and kept a note of my address.

Dusk, and a couple of stars: what they call
nautical twilight. A red glow in the stove,
a whisky. I took my eye off that light and lost it.
Then find them: a muck-spreader and two tractors.

The spreader must have got stuck where
land drains are broken at the edge of the wood.
Keys. Boots. Winch and chains from the barn.
No one round here’s surprised when you turn up.