Summer Farm, Norman MacCaig
Summer Farm
Straw like tame lightnings hang about the grass
and hang zigzag on hedges.
Green as glass
the water in the horse-trough shines
nine ducks go wobbling by in two straight lines.
A hen stares at nothing with one eye
then picks it up. Out of an empty sky
a swallow falls, and flickering through
the barn, dives up again into the dizzying blue.
I lie, not thinking, in the cool soft grass
afraid of where a thought might take me – as
this grasshopper with plated face
unfolds his legs and finds himself in space.
Self under self, a pile of selfs I stand
threaded on time, and with a metaphysic hand
lift the farm like a lid and see
farm within farm, and in the centre, me.
Norman MacCaig