SALISBURY PERSPECTIVES POEM 15

Set in our own scene, where do we lie? In portrait or landscape our life is inspected by all.

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"Bees blew like cake-crumbs through the golden air, white butterflies like sugared wafers, and when it wasn't raining a diamond dust took over which veiled and yet magnified all things." Laurie Lee

The Landscape

Across the page a vista of green,

Dotted with automobiles and trucks,

A landscape unusual in its regularity,

Ordered to fit with bush and tree.

What lies ahead we cannot see,

Only the grace of ordered nature,

Interrupted by man’s endeavour,

Vast and plain under the great expanse of sky.

Our desires are high and levelling with

The short cut grass is not easy,

For what we want requires endeavour,

The time is ours and life may be plucked.

So where are we in this landscape?

We do not plough or mow or sing an idle tune,

Where is our place in this picture,

The frame of which is a boundary secure.

"For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life - the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value." Claude Monet