In Memoriam: Basil Bunting

            1

some images claw to light

from dark   climbing hand over hand

up from a cave to appear near a spring

surrounded by willows

while others grow like sycamore seeds

sown by trees

in an aerie eaglets shudder

while images claw

wingbeats shatter cold air

sunlight slanting through willows

shading horses standing in water

chestnuts and bays   Anglo Arabians

with a colt watching a stallion

mares standing deepest

conscious of a colt

that will toughen with time

an eagle circling the sun

up in the vega   eagles soar

where troubadours wandered

solitary men   that many might have helped

had had less pride

           2

And whose horses are these?

a stallion spurred away

by a black booted Spaniard in Andalusia

spooked by a muse swimming naked

in a pool under the falls

where sun boiled pebbles

make potatoes for a poet

    

and poetry wants to be naked with you...

bold words if spoken boldly

else pathetic   whispered by that sensitive

youth we grow tired of

grooming mares in imaginary fields

there are ways of working

like turning words on a wheel

in a spiral towards meaning

and there are ways of laying down tools

signifying    completion

                    

            3

  

Then owlet flew with slow wingbeats

from fence post to barn roof

rust dusted her talons

moon rose over Stonehaugh

yellow bloom in purple leaves

above black edge

                      (written near Ronda, Spain 1985

                      and at Roughside near Tarset

                     part 3 published in The Hexham Courant about 1971)