Whiteway

The land is dreaming again,

white as a thin shelled egg,

cloud shoulder, quickthorn, stone axe.

Ancient woman with cargo of salt.

Not bleached or alabaster, not

ivory or ashen, pearly, pure or ice.

But white as mycelium strands

digging at limestone

to make a road on the ridge.

The land says listen and merge,

like ammonite held in oolite.

How rock wants a wet body to make fossil.

Such are the things we’ve forgotten,

adrift from the otherworld

of mole, cave, worm.

Whiteway’s memories of kin —

a sinuous line that pulls us back, dwells

in our unions and uncertainties.

To be with the season,

dream the road, says the land.

Walk us back to ourselves.