The crows were paper cut-outs against the light,
The tree an ink spill.
Their voices cut-out voices as they took their flight
Whilst the birds in the hedgerow trailed watercolours.

The endless clouds were writer’s block,
Dampness eating through the page,
And at the skyline, bleeding up,
The church towers leaked villages.

In shattered fields, between the trees,
Beneath the troubled sky,
Barley was vivid only as a memory.
And the frost built sparkling sculptures too ephemeral.