Whitethorns

WHITETHORNS

The paling posts we would tap into the ground with the flat of a spade
more than thirty years ago,
hammering them home then with a sledge
and stringing them with wire to keep our oats from Miller’s barley,

are maxed out, multilayered whitethorns, affording us a broader, deeper shade
than we ever decently hoped to know,
so far-fetched does it seem, so far-flung from the hedge
under which we now sit down to parley.

— Paul Muldoon, Moy Sand and Gravel, 2002