God Creates Barnesmore in a Week

Monday was murky, the house was all percussion with rain;

God made the mountains and hills, but minimally:

mere suggestions of fir, fern, sally, of uneven slope in the foreground;

beyond that, the cloud gathered like smoke, thickened white as toothpaste,

so there was nothing to see, just a blankness,

and He was pleased with that.

Tuesday, similar; the road with the grass traffic-line

puddled and shining; the lawn an exuberance of green growth,

of docks gleefully extending themselves, all needing to be mown.

He left the mountains out completely; just made the hawthorns beyond

the garden-fence, and left the rest to whatever He wished to dream up,

and He was happy with that.

Wednesday morning the clouds had shifted and He knew

He was going to have to mow the lawn.

He went at the mountains again, inserting undulations,

rocky outcrops, streams, ravines, stretches of evergreen forestry

and above it all bare rocky crests.

He stood on the footpath, hands on hips, surveying it all

And was very pleased.

Thursday too was fine. He took out one of the fold-up chairs

and sat surveying the geography he had created.

Saw that it must fit into a wider landscape, so sculpted hills,

more gentle in curvature and ever decreasing in height

and flattened them eventually into gentle pastures that tipped

down towards the sea, a silvery sliver at edge of His view,

and He was again quite pleased.

Friday, less than satisfied with the whole thing, He put sheep

round-backed onto the slopes and set them moving to and fro like amoebae,

birds flitting through the near distance, swallows swooping

and a magpie perched on the electric wire just over from the house,

then more sheep, shock-eyed, and foul-arsed foraging up to the fence;

and He was pleased.

Saturday, clouds rolling in from the west, was spent erasing, restyling,

erasing, reordering the whole scene. Feverishly, all day long

tippexing out sections which led Him into that chain of changes;

most of the day the summits were absent like the head off a statue,

the week's fine details obliterated and recast at speed, until, near evening

the clouds cleared, and He eventually packed it in

and seemed satisfied.

Sunday, He was slow to rise, and when he did, attacked the Sunday

newspapers. Later He watched The Sunday Match, and, to tell the truth,

I don’t think He looked at the hills all that day.