Rivers drifting into eternity

Inevitably, I picked up a couple of second-hand poetry books whilst we were visiting Melrose the other day - was particularly pleased to find a copy of this pictured (3rd edition) 1987 anthology ...

... here's a favourite Alan Bold poem, taken from within:


FENCES

Even in nature man makes divisions,
Mapping out territorial acquisitions
With stones that fence out fields and grass
As solid warnings against trespass.
Yet sheep in winter wear frozen cones of wool
That tinkle like pieces of steel.
And the animals refuse to be fenced in.
These stupid sheep blunder, baa out their din
And stupidly stray from their territory.

This, of course, is allegory
In reverse. The sheep are sick
Of imitating man who likes to stick
To the bit he was born to,
Never wonderingly wandering in blue
Grass or green skies but instead
Fencing fields inside his head ---

(Never seeing grass running like a green sea,
Rivers drifting into eternity,
Buttercups shaking their yellow heads,
Thistles blasting out of earthbound beds,
The erratic arrow of a swift
Winging its way through a wind drift)

--- Fencing fields inside his head
And staying there.

The sheep flounder in the air.

---

Alan Bold (1943 - 1998)

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