Where once
a shepherds crooked stick
once pressed the ground,
a sheep now grazes.
Rested against a drystane dyke,
like the wall,
the stick is dappled with lichen.
Stars appear and wheel across the sky.
In the day through
clouds and shafts of light
dapple the landscape
like the lichen on the wall
and the old stick.
Shadow and light –
patterns of the landscape
all softly weave a language
too old to be spoken
of which the old stick,
a syllable.
Carl John Barber, 2015.