Jodrell Bank

I am considering a radio telescope
without really understanding what it does.

I loiter in a field where polite cows look
without staring at this bemused man

abroad in the Cheshire countryside.
Shifting my feet for the cold, I crane

my neck to take in the great
white-silver acorn cup across the plain.

The bolder cows murmur
what they'd always meant to ask,

'What is it collecting, that monstrous
milk-bucket or towering hayrick,
save the familiar drizzle of rain,
insects, leaves?'

I am uncertain, but feel for this moment
the weight of representation for all our species'
greatest endeavours. So I tell them,

'It is searching for echoes
of cows in other meadows
under buttercup stars
beyond this crust of sky'.

Next>