what survives

16
First day of the first week: rain
on perennial ground cover, a sheen
like oil of verdure where the rock shows through;
dark ochre patched more dark, with stubborn glaze;
rough soggy drystone clinging to the fell,
broken by hawthorns. What survives
of memory | you can call indigenous
if you recall anything. Finally
untranscribably, that which is | wrests back
more than can be revived; inuring us
through deprivation | below and beyond life,
hard-come-by loss of self | self’s restitution.

Geoffrey Hill, Speech! Speech!