! ! Versus

Wood, leather, metal clank together in irregular rhythm: behind the Roman ploughman crows and sparrows compete to see what the blade throws up from this red soil like ancient pots; the horse, its patience godlike, knows when to turn without that hoarse, brief, ancient shout. The old typewriter rattles on so fast you cannot tell whether she is happy in her work; again, again, the bell rings, telling her it’s time for carriage to reverse. The poet’s eyes are unfocussed, lost to thought; the words come slow; more certain, where the line may end - the mind to take the mind’s own breath. Versus. Where the furrow ends; and where the line of verse asks some new thing of the mind.