Turning Off

Sheepwool beaded with rain
snagged on a trailing stem of bramble.

I had never been this way before
though I have passed, not following,
the sign pointing off the main road,
but that day I turned,
came to the place on the sign,
took the path across a muddy field,
saw the snag of wet wool
wiry on its hooks of bramble
and the bare blackthorns in a scrappy hedge:

all these icons of knowing looming
out of the white shadows
of that pale day;

and horses, yes there were horses,
denying the melancholy of the mist,
from another world, chesnut brown
and vibrant as they galloped
across the field
affirming the significance
of a sign followed.