In a Country Lane

If ever man had moment for it – now
as summer springtime of small leaves like rain
has its storm-singing – I can feel love’s strength
and suddenness – as now a ginger cat
lurks in the hedge and peers out and is gone –
and know truth’s presence – as a farmer turns
his sixteen cows and calves into a field.
I hear a word now in the April silence.
It has our years in it. A tree outspread
in a fine semicircle has the note –
and all things take it on. A tail-trembling lamb
driving at milk; the wayward Concorde path
of a pair of rabbits; the stealthiest water-breeze
enveloping the world. To breathe, to see –
and blindly, as in life’s most inner room,
to know.

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