The Ground
I am laying on my back
suspended in the air,
halfway between the roof
of the mechanical digger
and the chalk it has worked.
'I' is not a good word
to describe what I am,
for an ego recreates itself
at a fraction of the speed
of this blurred dislocation:
I am less than self,
after personhood, socially
abstracted, seeing place
as transcended, or lost.
We knew the morning,
found distances easy as we
climbed the long horizon
of a white, lark hung
landscape, already feeling
matter draining from form
but not noting that, unaware.
Everything was in its place,
including me - I was the
outsider in my known hills,
as displaced as the turf,
subject to a well-spoken
stranger from London
who naturally took charge
of the direct action equipment
like the DoT naturally made
the M3 into landscape.
Now I am looking up
at that well spoken boy
as he hangs in the air,
one hand leaving the clasp
of another: he is alien
(I see him as he is),
thrown by a guard
I feel more sympathy with,
being of his class, objectified.
I do not pity anyone - see
no human in the air,
legs braced on nothing,
rootless. The blue sky
holds him still in what
I have in place of meaning:
perhaps he can see
the horizon, angled, within
perspective, myself
and this place
by his world contained.
He waits in the sky,
always above me, seeing
me merging with chalk
that is perhaps a blur.
The horror of the ground
is forever visible to him,
though I cannot feel it.
I cannot have my own
image of, nor grasp upon,
a dislocated ground
I only know through him.
