The White Harp Poem by john appleby

A shabby lustre torn from gloom dragged her bones into view,
rose from stone the white harp plucked by wind and crows,
its delicate air tangles and suffocates in bog cotton whispers
and the aqueous babble released from the mountain's bow.

Each footfall changes the scene, rheumy eyes now picked clean,
her spindly limbs that once ranged beyond the seething shore
take root in this paupers' meadow in the draft of the mountain's door,

and the skylarks charmed by the aureole cadence dance on strings,
lick the rim of the empty moor.

The white harp that bursts from its fly blown bag anchors its shadow,
and in the last smear of day, the grinning lambs that spill from her womb....sang.