Fractal, grasping monarch, crowned
in acorns, shaking brittle leaves
defiant, vibrant, clothed in colours,
housing hidden thousands
in branch and bark
Six hundred years
of vernal tempests weathered
amidst a twisting landscape,
field to forest to field, unfettered
it bulks and bends
Sloshing round the bay road
through the foot-deep potholes,
glorying in the rain-lashed dark
as the wind made the phone-lines sing
I saw him. Brown, dishevelled, shivering -
a leveret, bamboozled by torchlight
diminished in his dripping fur,
wild eyes wide and startled.
my fingers felt
that new horizons beckoned
and dropped off, one
by one