A Letter from Spain

For Ernest Tomic

"try…wildness in a corner. It will bring you much happiness." (Derek Jarman)

When I slip into the lane
there's another order.
Time grazes, drops its guard.
The backs of things show themselves
without pretence:
the overgrown, the discarded,
the working life of plants.
It's then I can enter the field
you wrote to me:
the most interesting parts
are the edges… beside me
what looks like wild chamomile,
and also chicory,
the briar rose is flowering.
You lie close to the ghosts
of hedgerows. It's a calling,
this community you feel
with a lost practice.
You say the campesinos complain
there's no life in the country anymore
but, foreign shepherd in this place,
with your headscarf and hopeless dogs,
you scout the landscape
for shy traces of the local.
Soon you'll search out the leaf
that will curdle milk for your supper.
Your flock wanders fallow ground.
Fleas bite, you tune the radio and lay down
more lines of the letter…lots of wild poppies…
You'd know the sound of the wind
through wheat fields. I'd love to tell you
more about it, and about other things here,
how spring's unfolding.
Our seasons meet, my winter lane
opens to acres of stubble.
We're both walking, stopping,
hands on our hips, heads to the sky,
listening for rustlings, tending weeds
and working quietly at the edges.