A Walk in the Park

A public space     a working space      one that earns its keep
herds of cow and deer                 
hard clods of earth      hide beneath the grass      turning ankles
elsewhere
         soft clogging soil                 
                           bog-traps feet.


A man approaches      walking several dogs.
One dog disappears
                  into the undergrowth
smells            something I can't smell
hears             something I can't hear
                  and doubtless now                                    sees              something I can't see

The man's a long leash-length from me
                                     calls
                                     gets no response

Different landscapes
his and mine on one hand        and the dogs

Their landscapes telescoped with ours.


We are in need of something
                           a technology      
                           an inspiration
                           a moment of pure genius

that will                  extend the landscape's scope
unroll
      the whole
               in one exposure
                              never seen before


see nature's whole-frame collage
                                how
a million mini-landscapes go to make
the picture in the frame:
                         fragments of cloth
                         the bits and bobs                 
                         the photographs
                         and cuttings cut from lives 
                                                    (not ours).



Reappearing from a clump of seeding bracken
something limp and bloodied hanging from its jaws
too far away for me to see      rat       rabbit                 
what it is
          the dog appears

to have re-entered 
                  our known landscape.
                                     Hardly!

Landscape is defined          not by the sensed
                              but by the sensing
                              not by surroundings
                              but by our neural architecture


If rat      or rabbit      happened to have been
last of its kind
                it would have been a landscape lost for ever.

Tomorrow landscapes - his and ours - will show a change.

The dog's will still be sound
                             ours will have shrunk again
                             parts replaced or simply lost.


In every frame      there are as many landscapes
as creatures living there.

If we can but pull out the scope to see it in its full extent.
Look through the scope...
                        who knows what might be seen?