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Mid-morning twilight is the brightest hour
And drab is any final rot-bruised flower,
The damp-drenched air is thin to breathe,
Pricking cheek and spotting sleeve;
Slugs glisten in the mould,
Half-stunned by the wet cold.
The wagtail at the rain-brimmed ruts
Dashes forlornly, flutters, tuts;A florid pheasant lands,
Running for the stands
Of filigree and white-bark birch now stripped
Of bile-spot leaves which all night long have dripped.
The ash trees gape above the waste
Of straw-blanched roughland grass – a pasteOf mud and water welling through its roots;
A green-dark hemlock sags beneath its fruits
Of sullen rainfall drops –
November’s bitter slops.
Mid-afternoon, a dusk like
devil’s grog
Stuffs
the weald’s valleys with creosote fog; In fields and town mist climbs,
Crisps pools and glass with rimes;
Cold-thickened night solidifies:
The wagtails roost with wary eyes.
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© November 2014