After John Constable
With haste made, the way
to school now means
catching a ledge
before sunbleed strikes,
grass top already
abiding by boot
bottom, insistent
on adopting a new
shape. It is far too easy,
this becoming typeface.
Try to treecover, clotting
as clouds do. Never conjoin
for long. They are not there
at all, those lopsided lichens
flattening themselves, shivering
iron over the foothold.
Quick-drying, the long path
submits for a man and his
branches to shrink upward.
Only beneath this cover
of childhood can his sky sulk.