halftwo
Wird Batcher
As if stooping under a low ceiling the valley's head is lost to the mist. The grey shroud stretches above, hiding the tops. Cold funnels up the vale condensing on its rising, piling on the clouds.
Life has cooled. The cow-browsed oaks spread above meadows thick with buttercups drooping with recent rain, Swallows sweep between, dark in shadow.
A Chaffinch and a Willow warbler half sing in the gloom. A single Swift squeezes between the dropped sky and the rising slopes. Rooks, no darker than the inky insides of the woods, feed quietly among the trees.
A half-heard half song of a maybe Whitethroat trips from the blossom loaded hawthorn hedge hanging wet tresses: a wedding dress in the rain.
Now a sudden Little owl stands by the roadside, arms-reach close. Its head pivots and eyes still show, back and front, then turns again as if in full rotation. This trick is repeated and still fools. Speckles and bars shuffle on loose shaken feathers drying after the shower.
It drops to a tumble of stones by the wall and runs on wet turf - stooping to snuffle at some small prey.
The soaking sky sheds more rain: wet to already wet. Only the distant Mistle thrush continues to sing now. The curtain falls.
Life has cooled. The cow-browsed oaks spread above meadows thick with buttercups drooping with recent rain, Swallows sweep between, dark in shadow.
A Chaffinch and a Willow warbler half sing in the gloom. A single Swift squeezes between the dropped sky and the rising slopes. Rooks, no darker than the inky insides of the woods, feed quietly among the trees.
A half-heard half song of a maybe Whitethroat trips from the blossom loaded hawthorn hedge hanging wet tresses: a wedding dress in the rain.
Now a sudden Little owl stands by the roadside, arms-reach close. Its head pivots and eyes still show, back and front, then turns again as if in full rotation. This trick is repeated and still fools. Speckles and bars shuffle on loose shaken feathers drying after the shower.
It drops to a tumble of stones by the wall and runs on wet turf - stooping to snuffle at some small prey.
The soaking sky sheds more rain: wet to already wet. Only the distant Mistle thrush continues to sing now. The curtain falls.
