Better than my painting - a wonderful photo taken by Pete Gilbert.
Twice this week I have seen a hare in a wood. One was in the copse and the other in The Cover at the Reserve.
On both occasions, the area was open enough for me to see the hare running for some time. In the copse, it felt as if I were quite close - certainly close enough to see the brindle of the creature's coat.
My dad said how lucky I was and as he has commented on my non-rhmying poems, I decided to write a rhyming one.
Lost creatures
Bursting from the brush, brindle-bristled hare -
a pelt to match the winter wood - sensing
sight and sound with eye-marked ears. Taking care
over leaf-strewn ground: his flight is silence.
Above, finches in the livening twigs
glitter with song, sprinkling sound as sweetness.
Somewhere crows caw, woodpeckers laugh, the big
brash alarm call of blackbirds... I see them,
at the edge of vision,
the wood's lost shapes.
Goshawk, dormouse, pine marten, nightingale.
Here and then gone.
So still.
But a branch breaks -
and, in this shadowy place, they walk again -
silver lynx, bristly boar, aurochs, bear -
and blaze-eyed wolves chasing a brindled hare.
Lovely hare painting. And you did an excellent creature filled poem, the rhyme/off rhymes work well (your dad will be pleased) and the shape of the poem suggests motion to me in the verse where lines are staggered.