An Obscurer Poem by Julian Mann

An obscurer:
little shelf supporting vanity.
Inside, I kept for the first line
ideal and fancy
yet still, now, with non-delight
I grapple with its context height,
as if when we said you measure
the abbey (name)by the trees.

A gatehouse history
seeming redundant in hollow
shadow;
shutterings
wood service-track
humped to subterranean dust,
shadow before its kestrel.
Yet still, now,
verges muddied to purple flowers.