An English Day on a Western Plain

Fog has quietly crept in,
A stranger from another land

Hangs in heavy stillness
On the brown, flat plain

Bearing tales of English hills,
Green grass and purple heather

To tumbleweed and thistle thorn
Quaffing the cracked parchment.

Only my breath moves this quietude,
A vapor of lingering curls

Whispering of bog fires and gentlewomen
Who put mittened hands to heavy paper

And penned the mists
Of their minds,

Then it vanishes into the white blanket that
Softens sagebrush and spiny weed.

It’s an English day on a Western plain.
Call me Charlotte or Emily or Jane.