I lurched into orbit today, dog-fueled
shoe-mounted thruster rockets,
propelled my aching body up the path,
a big, squat Space Shuttle.

The cosmological riot of colour reached out,
panchromatic, a spectrum, corona,
blinking and winking at me,
enveloping me.

Space it seems has dropped to earth
lying like an ethereal blanket over the waking Spring fields
a constellation of dandelions dot this sky;
stars stretching off light years away,
even beyond the old wood (out Andromeda way)

A nebula of docks, their leaves curving through space,
bullying through the long grass, bent awkwardly
pushing against the foot of the cows’ steading.
With little rain, the paths are dusty, diaphanous
Asteroid Belt footpaths viewed through the telescope of my eyes.

And the sheep droppings, the damn
damn sheep droppings
bring me back to earth
but above, our own White Dwarf, massive, relentlessly beats
its drumroll of cold May heat.