(Menglers hill)

You’ll take this place away!
This view is portable. You ’ll find
yourself unpacking it a year from now
and half a continent between. Your mind
will catalogue a day invaded by
wild irises and sparaxis grown loud
in churchyards. Mengler’s hill
will be with you when next October happens
east of here. The patchwork patterns
fence-stitched on the valley floor will fill
the space between your eyelids and your eyes.

                 *****
(Hilde ’s kitchen)

Remember yesterday? You saw this hillside through
the light that tamarisks filtered in between
the starch in curtains. Light improved
by strudel, kuchen and the smoke-blown
Metters scent of stove enamel — sharp, clean,
wood-warmed smells. A light that ran
through German blessings on the wall and spilled
across that day you took away a hill,
packed shadow-patches cast by tamarisks and
brought sparaxis and stone-walled churchyards home.