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Snipe

As we sleep, the snow falls, deeper
than the swimming waters
which scour the culvert.
Here a wintering snipe shelters.

Our headlights will catch the shivering stream,
blinding the tense bird.
It will snap…then bounce along the verge,
and scoop the air over the hedge.

It happens like this every five years or so.
A hard frost crisps the estuary mud,
as quiet white flakes slant over the rust-marked turf
at the frozen river’s edge.


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