The Land

Badgered plants badge blasted heath

Lawns quartered fence between

Planned out like Battenburgs spans betwixt

Many hands wild horses flank, tracked with speedslime

Mother nature affixed in brumal beauty

Afflicting heather abundant

Smothering eggshell plumage covers ruins

Broccoli tops jut out amongst rocks a was-roof consisted of

In derelict barns owls like reapers on long-armed rafters watching creepers scurrying by the threshing step.

Shy creatures venturing

Dark, secret evenings

When they die no hearse

Howling and owl-shadowed earth interning them

Turning them loam worm fodder, back beneath the clod

Witch-tenanted hares naturally unsettled

Dare forth from nettled ditch to pitch black meadow

All riches pitch-coated contrasted with sylvan pictures

Brickless cathedrals no less rich lacking strictness of erection

Knotted roots inches below, a hod never broke

Cold winter thwarts a burrowing mole, who throws himself down a hole a badger bored in a motte

Frost sleeping on furrows.

Dear daytime fauna, mirrored altar upon a frozen lake

Reflections thrown back altered, sun exalting sloping borders golden

Assaultive interventions of lancing light, as at saintly intercession

Censuring white blankets

Land sends back sun twicetimes intensity

Hawks sent soaring, prey bold against hoarfrost

Sky painted broad strokes, valley throat choked with thick foliage

Diving open-mawed at boreholes

Clawed paws of some great thing had caused

Incautious schoals, moment’s pause

Is all is takes it takes all

Beak breaks heaves prey to icy surface

Gawping pyke barely sentient mouthing wordless sentiment

Sediment tumbling down leeward slopes to join sole-cutting scree beds

Perched on leafless eyrie a nest begging thievery

Martens elope with stolen eggs

Birds flying in from France, as if invited by McMurrough.

Alchemisland