Two Pools
North wind’s bend bullrush spears,
arrow like they stab the pool surface,
scatter blue ice ribbons
toward a hoof hard
frost laced bank.
August was hot and dry. Marsh cattle,
thigh sucked and mud smacked
waded the waters dirty dregs,
‘till they and the summer pools were parched.
It was easy then to tread the cracked mush
of the flat bed between high stalks.
With Autumn rains,
ducks and moorhens came
their gentle chiding
and bobbing gait
reclaiming the chilled wetland.
Stars hammer bright
nail the vast night sky
above the Marshes
deep December dark.
Inside the barns soft yellow light,
three bulls in stalls
and cows are warmly gathered in,
munching hay.
At dawn in spring some will calf
among flattened buttercups
of the small protected meadow
between two pools.
(c).B. Fry