14 OCTOBER 1995, Page 40

Experience

Every day I pass a farm.

From the train the hens are white The grass is green The tractor the colour of fire The blue of a worker's overalls A shade deeper Than the sky.

Yesterday, on a walk, I reached ground-level — And the farm was real: The hens were not so white The grass had mud at its roots The tractor grew rust And the worker's overalls Were no bluer Than a storm-cloud.

And, for a time, I was dismayed.

Then I saw that some feathers were white Some grass needed no mud in which to thrive Rust had not conquered all the tractor And parts of the worker's overalls were even A shade lighter Than the sky.

Christopher Leach