The Peninsula

When you have nothing more to say, just drive        

For a day all round the peninsula.                   

The sky is tall as over a runway,                         

The land without marks, so you will not arrive                                           

But pass through, though always skirting landfall.            

At dusk, horizons drink down sea and hill,                

The ploughed field swallows the whitewashed gable   

And you're in the dark again. Now recall                     

The glazed foreshore and silhouetted log,         

That rock where breakers shredded into rags,   

The leggy birds stilted on their own legs,                                 

Islands riding themselves out into the fog,         

And drive back home, still with nothing to say         

Except that now you will uncode all landscapes        

By this: things founded clean on their own shapes,    

Water and ground in their extremity.