We climbed up the gorge once,
to Samuel Butler’s hut, which happened
to be a memorial plaque set
in dense gorse.
Yellow flowers on a khaki hill.
It is a story you embellish in company—
add the sighting
of a Tarr, his quiet black face
rotated in slow motion; the picnic
where we laid
goats cheese, apples and sweet sultanas
on a home-spun jersey
that you still wear,
or the encounter with a skink, skin wrapped
around his skeleton, which
when you reached out
