you thumb its edge and grass gets grassier

The quick thrush cocks his head,
bunching his pectorals, halted.

Long holly shadows hone his shining claw;
you thumb its edge and grass gets grassier.

The tapered spire, at anchor in its ring
of tomb and cedar, has to quit ascending.

So you revolve in hearth-smoke’s occult graves,
banished by touch of frost beading the roofs.

What increase, could these ends outlast
perpetual waste.

Christopher Middleton, "Objects at Brampton Ash"