It's Still Life

The Colour of Elsewhere — Poems from the Periphery

North — II

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— 10 July: Osnabrück to Bov, Denmark

they flash their yellows,
sunflowers
in the hedgerows.

a young forest,
wind and branches,
open,
close,
like a loose hinged door.

smooth, he says with extra ooooos.
it’s a Santana road, I say.

our tyres
sweep clean
the Autobahn.

a favourite playlist.
euphoria
sets in
at molecular level.

boxes,
ships unloading
colours
broad as merchandise.

under the Elb
drivers with horns
in the tunnel

just because they have one.

black and white
cows
and cows.

crows lift
under cover
of clouds.

the road
knows heat’s song —
we lost the lyrics
elsewhere.

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— 11 July: Bov’s Church, Bov Denmark

beside Bov’s church

white clover
over the graves.

the earth
gives slightly
underfoot.

fescue
fills the worn places.

eight hundred years
of feet

and still
the grass grows back.

the bell
rings
in quarters.

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— 11 July: Bov Kro to Vejby Strand, Denmark

hi-vis yellow.

roadwork
and roadwork.

islands
green with beech.

yawning fields of barley
broad as cloudless blue.

‘annoying —
traffic and a slow lorry,’
he says,

and I write that down, too.

footpaths between fields,
carved by time,
begging for water.

cow parsley,
mugwort,
poppies
divide
the direction of traffic.

‘roadworks, again,’
he sighs.

and I write that down, too.