On Ash Wednesday

out come the hoops

to bowl open-

mouthed and breathless

through the rich dust

all morning, down

the long, straight fen

causeway, wooden

and iron hopes

that the wind wants

to carry to

immaculate

conceptions in

Rome, to the end

of the Ermine

Way and Cardyke,

without one stick

having had to

strike, crying: we

are nought and praise

that we are in

fens of minus.