tormentil

in the shaft down to Wycoller
steep and trodden deep descending sunlight alley
I was on my knees
like a magnifying glass
with my book of flowers
trying very hard to look
at a tiny tormentil
that had suddenly erupted from the banks
of the seventeenth century

in great difficulties of scale I now rolled
all down the packhorse track
in my new fractal hair and gait

.