East

Here men lift bottles to the drizzle of light,
glue-boys bend in the shade of a bridge.

This is the province of water's edge.
Here anglers thread the current's eye,

shot-at ducks float from bushes.
This is the realm of trash and detritus.

Here scrap-yards vie with blackened sheds,
pubs and saunas keep on all night.

These are the fields where they buried the dead.
Here wild figs spread their leaves out wide,

birches thin to the gauntest of effigies.
This is a heron carving the sky.

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