For the first time in my life I didn’t feel

like an empty hayshed leaning down the wind

on top of the last thing you could dignify

by calling a spur beyond which peneplain

and then just plain for as far as I could see

from where I sat near a bale a straggling runt

had pulled apart to find it gone grey all through:

not absolutely sure of my emptiness

as if something in it was working adrift,

and almost unaware of falling behind.