David Morley

i. Port Meadow, Oxford, 1983

Walking to Woodstock Road from Wytham where leaf-worlds welled from all the wood’s wands, we talked salmon, midges, flood meadows, the energy system cindering softly under us, slow-cooking the marshlands.

‘The gate ought to be here. The map said so. That map back at my flat . . . Look, there’s a spot somewhere this way where sheep shove...

We are waiting for a Christmas that never came, each species a friend of a friend of some needle-hue. All the years, heights and postures are present like children in a school that no child ever leaves.

Each species a friend of a friend of some needle-hue: those adolescent spruces prickle with boredom like children in a school that no child ever leaves. The infant firs sing to themselves in...

Pawpaw and Paprika, two great bears of the Egyptians of Lancashire, Chohawniskey Tem, the Witches’ County,

who, when our camp plucked its tents and pulled out its maps, walked steadily with the wagons, ambling, always ambling,

all across the open pages of wet England, footing as far as Pappin-eskey Tem, the flat Duck County;

crossing to Curo-mengreskey Gav, the Boxers’ Town;...