Bitter is the wind tonight,
ruffling tawny feathers
as silent owl swoops low
to snare oblivious vole.

Bat flits haphazard beneath dark boughs;
***** watches sly from hidden thicket,
scenting reckless rabbit, hapless hare.

By sunken ponds where old gorse rustles
alongside tired hawthorn,
snail writes glimmering messages
in liquefying mud.

And along byways lit by a golden moon,
polished bright by passing rags of cloud,
I walk homewards through cold centuries.