An Eden Conception

A raindrop, unaccountably round,

plunges into Mallerstang;

Eden valley, Victorian dark,

the last great wilderness in England.

 

People come here briefly;

a monarch, a highwayman,

a thief, an earl, a tramp to see

 

rivers rise – the Ouse and Eden -

and if this raindrop falls an atom’s width

to the East, it runs to York;

a molecule West, Carlisle.

On and on, the future forks

and this drop will not travel both.

 

Race into a great valley;

ginger gorse: an undomesticated,

wild, wet second world, happy

 

when earth and wind decide

what’s right and left, that it’s worth

a surging newborn driving to

a source, a smash, a violent birth.