At Lake Hornborga Watching Cranes

by Stephen Keeler

Were there three of us or four,
our backs to which of us it was
had held the camera?
Me with borrowed field-glasses
and zipped-up leather jacket
still trying out other people’s
personalities for size,
watching each blowsy crane landing
light as a waterboatman on a pond,
an archduke’s hat, with pins,
on loosely ploughed-up earth
in a Swedish vodka field
in spring