Monday 11 June 2007

Natural history poem

The hiss of cicadas like steam escaping,
Wild rhubarb white as picked-bones curling
in amongst masses of racing green nettles.

At this distance the motorway sounds
like a wide-load animal grumbling, lowing,
baying to its mate in its seasonless pasture

behind those trees, those gesturing branches
whose solicitous hey! over here! invites us:
Come see the Traffic, you natural-historians!

2 comments:

Rich Puchalsky said...

I am gratified to see a poem which I can interpret as being influenced by one of my poems (the first one in Sun On the Surface).

Adam Roberts Project said...

It hadn't occurred to me, but I don't doubt you're right ... except that Sun on the Surface is rather better than this.