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The little jetty sinking in the rushes, hard to find.
Who has no house now will hang his hat
on the ramshackle, the provisional, a summer’s

quick labour; will sit for hours inheriting a silence
stitched with warblers and lake tunes. Hermit
of the wetlands, sleep on reeds, sleep on water:

everything else can wait. The streets have flown
the traffic vanished, and only the dark
comes on in the dark. Cock your ear and a tradition

opens: you can still get in, you can sing
until the edicts are unfrozen
the palaces forgotten, until the dogs start barking

and the neighbour’s Toyota comes creeping down the lane
to sniff you out and pin you down.

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