Somehow the action has at last gone beyond

Indoors for this as
his through the bark:
notice its colour – asphalt

or slate in the rain
then go inside, tasting
weather in the tree rings,

scoffing years of drought and storm,
moving as fast as a woodworm
who finds a kick of speed

for burrowing into the core,
for mouthing pith and sap,
until the o my god at the heart.

* * *

Uncertainty is not a good dog.
She eats bracken and sheep shit,
drops her litters in foxholes
and rolls in all the variables,

wriggling on her back, until
she reeks of them,
until their scents are her scents.
She takes sudden, windy routes

through hummocks, cairns and ditches
so you can't spot where she is
and acknowledge her velocity
at the same time. She’s fidgety,

but still careful to snuffle
through all the mud on the trail.
She can't see in the dark
but bumps her snout

on the overhang lapping
the path. Daylight’s no better:
she has to screw her eyes
tight against the glare

and, panting, just risk it, following
her nose across the landscape
her tongue brighter than probability,
brighter than heather, winberry and scree.

* * *

It’s a hot night. We walk the highwalk
from the tube. The concrete walls
seep warmth and we smell

garden flowers, hear city church bells,
loiter in the odd sweet spot until
the sound of water falling

tugs us on. Lakeside, we know
if there’s a muse
of concrete, she lives

here, inside these buildings
made of crushed Welsh
granite and of rain. Through

the doors and now our ears
are caves, our minds
cathedrals of flash and glow,

until we are beside ourselves and
our hearts have softened in our bodies
and when we go back out the street is silk.