THE THUMPIN’
(When I Heard the Song of the Signing of My Papers)

Pundits seemed to agree—all the clouds were left, and their spines seemed to be mitred. Like bishop hats, only worn backwards—like the darkness I saw about to pass was just the stir of startled grass under a shadow of flies. No one explained this vagueness of light and its angle better than Margaret Thatcher—the fuzz of the above vaguewhite is as clear as the signature at the bottom of a paper. The inky whisker of the pentip—so mice-like, the conspirations of our fingers. We autograph, we measure the day. How planar—I cannot recall when it was not, when a rhododendron was not also a lawmaker. One could mistake—God does permit a different degree of perceived greenness for every pasture, that pastures shall all be called pastures for that aspect of sameness, that one unbefogged brace of blue sky is under another unbefogged brace of blue sky, and under it some grass taper. I was blown backwards, the bishops agreed, to where all the backs of the mice together were laid. There were clouds—ones one could mistake. Vaguewhite for rhododendron. God for God’s sake.