Strip-mined and strung out she searched around -
First in her home town, then further out.
She scanned the ground and lifted stones,
Sleeping in orchards and eating what she found.
She could not find it on the soft banks of rivers
Nor on the steep sides of hills.
Left for rotting, for maggot infested and gangrened flesh,
She pulled herself from linen and from sheets
And hobbled out to the street.
But she could not find it in shallow pools of mud,
Nor in the unrotten peat bog.
She could not find it next to me, becalmed in the creek.
And she could not find it sun-dappled under eiderdown silenced woods.

The further afield her circumference and her radiuses
The stronger became her legs, and her breath set firm and quick,
And the wind swept clean her labyrinths of head.
And she did not find it, not under the hedgerow, in burrows,
Running down brooks. Not buried with the mole,
Nor hovering with the kestrel.
But her heart more frequently missed a beat
And her blood flows more lyrical.
And she did not find it, but her heart goes on.