the first drops of rain
striking the limestone shelter
colour again

down below
singing to the darkness,
great whales

a thousand-page book 
I will surely never read —
the first narcissus

turning tide . . .
a barnacle waits
on a limpet

a blackbird’s sweet song
lost in the wilderness of hills —
prayer for the dead

after the rain:
the river
its weight

everywhere,
even in my pocket,
this morning’s spring wind

Dangerous pavements . . .
But this year I face the ice
with my father’s stick

Corn-crake
a cry in the wilderness
of meadow

bowed heads heavy
after daffodils
spelling the spring

house deserted —
rhubarb stumps
in the back garden

inside the empty shell, snail’s dreams

ancient earthworks —
a raven echoes vanished
war cries

I shut the history book
and the shooting
stops

dark wintry sky
geese wedge their way
into the wind

after the storm
fog off the sea
curling into snail shells

enfolding
the fallen foxglove
a slug's soft dream

\"Over mountains
mountains\" —
first snow

in spring
the cry of a cuckoo —
someone else’s dream

low tide
the driftwood
rests

damp meadowsweet —
horses in mist
up to their oxters

light almost gone:
through a swarm of midges
first star

hot sun after rain
wet statue of the Virgin
slightly steams

between pre-natal
and mortuary
the research unit

bunch of weeds
in a famine graveyard —
evening mist settles

November sunset
a galaxy of crows
quench the twilight

winter fog
over the river
moving with it

sun-touched gully . . . 
the wool and bones
of a passing winter

there must be light
where they came from —
chestnut blossoms

daffodils rot
in the vase
their shadows bloom

pauper’s graveyard
only the long grasses
have names