Gulley

Blew then air thin blue,
where threadbare clumps stitched the ether
into clods and burrows and rim shadows together,
emptiness where the morning carved a field of dew.

Once coursed a river a course,
just beyond the field its whitecaps shone,
now nothing but where the dew hugs the loam
of clods and burrows a hollow force.

Someone before built before one summer a house near here,
with shapely porch spindles and very wide doors;
now are pasted woodpiles along the moor
and eight empty windows to each room still there.

Nothing makes the gulley a gulley a ditch a gutter
of solid slow, gaping air;
Nothing embraces those beaten banks where
the house rippled in the mirror of the water.