Abandonment

1

Sleeping fields wreathed in speed
Tractor tracks rimmed by rain

Mid-evening, mid-winter, and no one rises
There is no guard to meet us

This carriage stops
At a stopped world.

2

We have lost our souls
Save for the words of pop songs

The ideal of beauty as armour
Clatters in celebrity headlines. Listen:

(Where have the people gone?)
– That is where the people have gone.

Hampshire, 2005
Photo: London, 2020