The Same Nettles

We’ve all cut our way through paths
Overgrown with stinging nettles,
Tripped on gnarled birch roots,
Thrust aside the bare rose-branches,
Lost in the darkening copse . . .

But when it’s the same copse,
The precise same silver birches,
That exact, single nettle, its head dancing,
Menacing, in the precise same wind,
Identical thorns darkening
The same decomposing rosehips below,

Then, the seeds begin to grow; it emerges
From those piercing, unkempt paths,
And entangles us;
Vines that we can’t cut through.

We look to the ochre sky,
In which we see those subtle shades,
Twilight tints few else discern:
Our hearts quicken

As we also feel the warmth of the sun,
And we find the ruins of a temple,
Long buried in moss and ryegrass,
The evening light glistening
Off the quartz in its Roman stones.