I'm awake but I can't yet see;

An eager chiffchaff is heralding me.

The image starts to form of a four-poster bed

sprung in the clarts of a riverbend.

And the Claviger knows

when the beaded shoots go

through the arid interstix of my toes

among the mazed roots of Rowan as

I pass my waste.

Vaporous shafts of a burgeoning sun

skewer the forest-floor onto a world fresh begun

all in the Name of the Harvest,

i.e. our ever-onrushing plasma.

Shadows of leaves

mottled by the cleaves

of caterpillar's ardent mandibles

form a basketweave of glowing mud,

bluebells in bud.

Linen smock

and scarlet-embroidered mantua

descend from alderbranches shined with dew to settle

onto my body.

A little emerald brooch

unclasps itself from moss

to alight upon my breast.

I step into a slipperpair -

exquisite replicas of those worn by

Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers.

Two swallowed cups

of pureed bilberries,

which grow in abundance

by the cornmill ruins:

One hungers for nothing.

Now let's follow

these tracks of a Fallow Deer -

sentences of clay leading away from here.

Out of the yawning dene

and over a gorsey brow vanishes

her black horseshoe rump and tattered tail

into a gossamer vale.

At the heather-tousled crest of

Yeavering Bell we may enter a

stone beacon-tower

from which the eye may

hold a whole sweep of the kingdom:

Hazy marshes, crow-pocked copses,

patchwork meadows labyrinthed with hedgerows

gently declining to a fluff of woodsmoke

clung to the fringe of the North Sea;

The village of Bebba

where once I lived, a

fisher, before I was forced to flee.

*

One fair morn, wrapped in a shawl of salt-mist

I gathered in my pots of White-Clawed Crayfish

and from those sucking sands

did I make my way

dripping to the kitchendoor of the Crossed Keys.

Young Charley Wheatstone, the innkeeper's lad,

with the same star-shaped birthmark as his dad

set square on his chin,

bid me a shy 'hail fellow'

and emptied the squeaking traps

into a pewter trough.

The forlorn brewer, lacking ample coin,

apologised with a token of grubs on a stick

and suggested payment take the form

of an upgrade to my visual and ontoceptual cortexes.

Back in the throes of my then-home -

a blubberlit chamber

off the cliff-crazing tunnels beneath the fort -

I donned Diogenes' Robes, imbibed the Code

and disappeared into a dream of Kittiwakes,

a hundred billion voices echoing around a

dark amphitheatre,

still ringing in my ears

as I went creel in hand

through the Bog of Names.

Upon entering a blossom grove

I went into total spasm as a

storm of info broke abruptly across my retinas.

I came around to an enhanced perception

of every life-form within a ten-yard radius.

Each throbbed with its own aurora.

Utterly awed,

I'd inadvertently drawn to my mind's-eye

a lone Ashy Miner Bee, as if to a plate

under a microscope.

I sobbed as I zoomed among

individual hairs on its forelegs and face

and stared for a long time into the ommatidia.

Performing a scan

on a cache of False Death Caps

I found I could trace their history

all the way back to manufacture.

Slippery Jack, Amethyst Deceiver,

Fairy Rings, Penny Buns, Hen Of The Wood…

I was amazed

scrolling not only the funguses yesterdays

but also their myriad yet-bloomed tomorrows.

With a burden of redcurrants

and wild garlic at my elbow I

wearily made my

way along Crackpool Burn,

joining the coast road at Glororum.

Up ahead I could see what

looked to be a robot knelt in the lane,

revealed at a higher magnification

as a gilt-clad knight of Old

submerged at the waist in

unyielding concrete,

flailing his arms to a windmill of gold.

Lifting up the poor soul's visor

my gaze met with a mask of

vein-popping fury -

or was it abject fear? -

gasping the Chivalric oath.

Then it was over -

he split asunder,

gleaming armour dissolving to unveil

the apprentice of Godwin the Whitesmith, a merest sliver of a man.

Stooped to retrieve the platinum from his mouth I

heard halted hooves and the cry "MURDERER!"

*

Tiny cobles out at sea,

a black wall of cloud in the east

and a taper of rainbow

faintly aglow

amidst their wakes.