at a gate of gold where furze, scrubs
and willows grow, and poised on the heath
in the midday marsh by fern and emerald gray,
his redness flexes its crystal lens
and stares through beads of cobalt
down the dew-decked lane.
What den flushed him out, strained
russet out of auburn, and put him down
amid the speckled shadows where broom
and heather fleck sedge and brush
till they sneeze seeds and polyps of musk —
thistles colonize the sweet vernal grass
with spots of pignut and meadow eyebright?
He sees all, the marshy rush and cuckoo flower,
the bilberries bursting at their seams,
and bluebells tolling softly on the mossy margins,
and he can sniff the scent off sage and ragwort,
hear the dog violets bark, and feel the urge to ramble
in the brambles before he insinuates himself
paw by snout into the tight-fitting foxglove.
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