The Hare in the Snow

My eyes adjust to a sky

as blank as a headache, a landscape

of snow-cloud florescence.

I walk across covered ploughed fields,

down delicate blackthorn hedgerows,

when a few feet away a furrow breaks for cover –

it runs

it runs and runs

and runs

bounding over whiteness, shedding whiteness

and where it lay, a crucible of melt

retains its white-hot heartbeat.

Barn Owl

My cave drip footsteps fill the barn

before I sense the silent sound

of wing in darkness –

a carpet beat out of my dimension,

sent from the vacuum of space,

a pure white blade

of soft steel – I see a feathered baby

face. With torchlight I follow

its flight path

as it traces a scythe on the night sheet

and is posted through a hole

in the velvet.

The Falconer

One day, he asked me would I like to

handle the hawk? I declined the offer.

How could the bones of the creature weigh

only as much as air? Its talons tightened

onto his stove gloved hand.

But the talent of hawks was lured by his wrist.

He’d release his Harris to the heavens

and watch it disappear – we’d turn our heads

and try to predict the stretch of skyline

from which it would return.