Sun-shower, Exeter-bound

Hard of focus now, in time

of plenty, wept as strangers to a damp

and greying greenland, grown with elder

twine: people grasp likewise

upwards, as though the rain to climb,

as Jacob’s ladder, as the oversky

clears and closes again, and hard

of focus again, English women

of the daytime train — or, farmproud,

louts in dripping tractors, or geese

by swollen ponds, more hard a-flapping,

hardness being something every

mudwalker, every railstalker, every

classroom chalker carries somewhere

in being.  Now: focus ye!

Now harden!  All that’s olden,

rich, and soggy: it will downsuck

when you would wander over fields

and under showers.  I tell you, friends,

post telescopes!  Mark your strides!