Trilobite in the Wenlock Shales

[ShiningKnight]

Trilobite in the Wenlock Shales

When the kingfisher flitted

Under the hazels I entered again into boyhood

Over a hurrying water.

The church clock dropped the quarters nearby

And from a little school

Children hallooed like enchanted animals

But I was watching a water that shipped the wild apples

With all the time in the world

Patient as a fisher bird

In the hazel light to learn to be a finder

Of life, its mark, on a black stone

Opened like a butterfly, a soul that water,

Swaling and swaling, had let be seen.

David Constantine

Poetry London

Number 47

Spriing 2004