short cut

With the confidence of the very drunk
I claim intimate knowledge
of a short cut. 
We clamber over a corporation stile,
self-consciously authentic,
and the salad green of young hawthorn leaves
brushes our faces.
Suddenly the stars make sense
now we are in the landscape.
The hedges grow as they have always grown
separating ancient fields.
Houses and factories disappear.
Some distillation,
like long stored country wine,
is in the air,
the breeze,
the soft-crushed grass. 
We hold hands like children in a story-book
clutching each other
with thin laughter,
old fears bursting our urban skin,
as large animals
rise from the ground,
lifting themselves like giants’ feet,
and lumber off snorting
leaving only their heat behind. 




© James Nash (Deadly Sensitive) 1999