ISSUE: Autumn 1988
William, how is it you forgive their litter so easily,
rolling back your rain clouds from the surrounding hills
like the lid of a sardine tin?
Now that you are in nature
do you commune with people?
Have you found something in common
with each group of boaters?
Has one of the Germans, like your friend Coleridge,
read Hegel?
Is one of the Japanese reminded of Buson
who also enjoyed lakes and misty peaks?
Is the American child, stoning the ducks,
feeling free?
In the August sunshine a Hawker Tornado
from the NATO Base at Blackpool
comes joy riding in close among the hills.
Dragging his sound behind like baggage, he banks around
and climbs up high.
If I were the pilot
I would look back and see Derwent Water
as an empty tin turned silver.
Its contents have left a sexual flavor in our mouths,
its jagged rim has cut us to the bone.
