Sunday 8 February 2015

WOLF wind







Under a sky, bruised and bloodied by the sun and cloud,
     there is a wolf wind that lurks and prowls through the wood;
     cruel... sly... and wicked.

The sheep don't seem to notice it, full of new-life - not yet born.
     Nor the bishop hare, as still as star light, eyeing me
     with the eyes of a prophet, from the long grassed verge
     that rolls its way to Oxhill.

Fractured puddles, spread like splintered flint shards
     the dust-hard track-ways that ring to the heel of a boot
     while down at the corner of Peacock Lane the wolf wind
     crouches, ready to pounce...

There's a grey light that blows from Nineveh, ocean cold
     and heavy; and trees, black stencilled, hag-haired and
     made arthritic by the seasons' turn, clutch and claw at the
     wild and restless sky.

Down by Banbury Road the rooks cling piratical
     to the bucking schooner of their branches,
     their sea legs steady, tending the new-life of their own
     and winging the fangs of the sly wolf wind.