Here’s a bit of fun, read the poem, guess the books…

Field Guide to a Shelf

Take your time, there’s no right way to navigate it. 
You might start at the left hand side, with a glossary
of landscape terms, which could prove handy for
identifying a Ghyll, a Gloop, a Tolmen, in the wild. 
Badly creased, through frequent browsing. 

Next, step into a history of women, 
walking. A reminder, that lone enraptured men 
have never truly moved in isolation. Then, 
pass through a country of rapt visions, delivered 
via the troubled eyes of a radical obsessive:

in desperate need of Peregrines. 
Now, glance sideways, see sky greet water, 
paddles plunge into fierce currents of mourning 
and also, several joyful stretches. 
Wash up upon the shores of a Suffolk village. 

Neighbour to Living Mountains, 
grown greater than their peaks. Nearby 
you may spy two Americans – one joking 
through deep woods, the other, terribly unsettled, 
by a seasonal absence of natural sound. 

And bid farewell to the rainforest, as it shrinks 
make your escape into the playful hands 
of an icon, celebrated for his economy of style 
and stretching facts, to grasp at truth. 
At this point, cross the Irish Sea, listen to a cry 

from assumed margins, before they’re buried 
out of sight, beside vital organs, in close sympathy 
with recollections of beloved fathers, haunted writers, 
hawks. Here, take an atmospheric short-cut 
by way of eerie southern downlands, 

pursued by wolf packs, mixed with men – 
two species bound together, as they chase 
across an unofficial country, burdened 
by the profound weight of deep time. 
While a green-philosopher, rues Albion’s descent. 

Chastened by a famous dissertation on a pond – 
not nearly so remote as it once seemed. Finally, 
trail’s end, far right, out west – where abundance 
has been forsaken, on the scarred and burning 
plains of treacherous and false frontiers.