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An Invitation for John Clare by Hugh Haughton (Born Helpston, 13th July 1793) Hedge-climber, poker through leaves, climber of gates, The fields stretch and amble beyond the fencing Drawing you over the boundaries into the bounded sky Where cows, sheep, a hunch-backed tree, the outlined barn Seem to go their own sweet way on their own terms And trees pass and loaded hedges trundle their freight Of nuts, haws, junk nests, into distant silences of cloud While you brave the invisible impact of ownership As you step over the stile, glancing guiltily backwards, And place each shoe carefully in the dew-starched turf Fearful of being seen but with a mission to see And record the secret geography of the other inhabitants Of this wet field, wood, parish, county, world, Where as map-maker, track-tracer, unweaver of epistemologies, You print new pathways across our displacement For the passage of weather, birdsong, a natural history Overlooked by the overseers, taking place under the leaves Where, on your hunkers, crouched down by a bush, Breathing an air of perpetual trespass in the grass, You watch an unknown green polis gleam beyond the pale And notate the music of a still unedited landscape. © Hugh Haughton « Home | Contributor Notes » |
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