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The snipe that flew up in front of my wellingtons
as I trudged the drowned mud and rushes
to see whether the spate-stream filling the ditch
would spread and seep under the cottage’s
shallow foundations, creep up the unmortared
fieldstone walls in their plaster cladding,

was a quick twist of white and khaki-beige,
a shrill high whistle of panic as it accelerated
low over clumps of sodden grass where cattle
had left deep hoof-shaped pools in which
the grey sky was cracking and gleaming