Turned in my hand
Pine cone every perfect detail
Like a pattern
Something of armadillo
About you
Love the symmetry
The natural grace
That makes my head
Swim
So natural
Like the way you smile
Like the way I feel
When you smile
Do you ever do
Anything less
Than be piney
Or coney
Sure you don’t try
Sure you don’t

Call it stupid
But feeling not at all
Light-hearted and romantic
On St Valentine's day
I pedal off
Without thinking
And follow my front wheel
To arrive among brides and grooms
Bouquets and buttonholes
Limousines and vintage Rollers
And even a flippin’ horse-drawn carriage
As I cycle into Gretna
Marriage-Ville, UK
On St Valentine's day

Drinking dandelion-and-burdock
til you drop
fighting over the does
punting your second burrow
over the first swallow
the first frost

Playing reynard-roulette
with the yearling foxes
out all night
winding up the hares
“big ears – can't dig”
Countless children

A sweetheart in every meadow

Old rabbits die hard

you carried the summer here
to move to stop stop stop
to move stop move
across this winter field

olive-speckled smudges
dull-ish sparks
a-flicker over furrows
dusted with snow

are you really there
whispers the naked hedge
are there really so many there
sings the stubble

here, here chorus the flock
blown skywards like spume
banners dancing bonny
at some alarm

cast like confetti
in an icy sky
to settle sudden, calmed
unseen now

the hawk is past
the dog is with its man
the crow-wars
are still months away