The Hermit

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 thе cleaves
 Of caterpillar's ardеnt 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
 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 in the dust, 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
 Tiny cobles out at sea
 A black wall of cloud in the east
 And a taper of rainbow
 Faintly aglow
 Amidst their wakes
 Tiny cobles out at sea
 A black wall of cloud in the east
 And a taper of rainbow
 Faintly aglow
 Amidst their wakes
 Tiny cobles out at sea
 A black wall of cloud in the east
 And a taper of rainbow
 Faintly aglow
 Amidst their wakes
 Tiny cobles out at sea
 A black wall of cloud in the east
 And a taper of rainbow
 Faintly aglow
 Amidst their wakes
 Tiny cobles out at sea
 A black wall of cloud in the east
 And a taper of rainbow
 Faintly aglow
 Amidst their wakes
 Tiny cobles out at sea
 A black wall of cloud in the east
 And a taper of rainbow
 Faintly aglow
 Amidst their wakes