Adlestrop
Edward Thomas


Yes. I remember Adlestrop—

The name, because one afternoon

Of heat the express-train drew up there

Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.

No one left and no one came

On the bare platform. What I saw

Was Adlestrop—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,

And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,

No whit less still and lonely fair

Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang

Close by, and round him, mistier,

Farther and farther, all the birds

Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Storms River:
Chaos Theory
C. J. Driver


     I watch the winter waves all day
To guess the places they'll start to gather up
And lift, and lift so slowly to the cusp
     Which hangs a moment as it breaks
In sudden downward curve of lighter green
     Before the backward spray of spume
          Which tags the wave
Appends a rainbow briefly to its edge.

     Though gravity has not yet trapped
The further stars in ordered evidence
(For light allows I may not see them now
     Where curves the fleeting universe)
This random music in my head includes
     The rainbow, cusp and spray,
          The light and stars,
The wave's return, the certain night to come.

Wilderness:
Written on Water
C. J. Driver


The sheen of dying wind
Across the lake —
The darkling light
As light delights the air
(The language knows so much beyond oneself)

The web of weaving wind
Across the lake —
The water light
Of silver shining air
(The language knows so much beyond oneself)

We think of something lost
In writing down
The flux of time:
But what completes our thought?
(The language knows so much beyond oneself)

The thread of meaning lost
In noting down
That fleeting time:
Precise the moment caught
(The language knows so much beyond oneself)