BEREAVEMENT

Bend me through the curlew's calling
far across the slow brown hills
Where my footsteps break the bracken
off the beaten track;
where my footsteps beat
the game birds
into startling startled flight.

Bend me through
the deep trough winding
of the fast brown stream
Where I see the sky in glimpses,
And stones beneath the sliding
silver of the twisting
water rushing.

Bend me to the crumpled clouds
Crouching low on slow brown hills
And darkly hide the sun's round burning;
I hear the wind up rough slopes sailing -
shaggy as a storm at sea -
On whose sides, against the howling,
I remember sunlight shining.

Bend me to the dark day, raining,
Where a hole lies in the ground;
And there are whispers
and there's weeping
for the life they'd longed would be.