THE WATER STATION

I watched them gracefully go their separate ways.
The moon had risen, like a map,
Its quiet seas the colour of the sky,
And straggles of red campion
Decreed, whatever happened in the south,
The hawthorn should protect its awkwardness
With emerald.
A wood pigeon deserted, terrified.
It should have kept its nerve, nevertheless.

WINTER VISITORS

There were goldeneye, a drake with swollen cheeks,
And the trim dark form of a duck, like the one you saw,
Jump-diving gracefully, for long enough
To hinder relocation. From the hide
I watched the drake being mobbed by herring gulls,
And then take flight across to the long spit
...