A light breeze, a feather breath, finds in the water, a reply: a pattern of brush marks; a bank-drawn thick rind of leaves and sticks, camouflaged via burnt chocolate uniform, disguise. White Mallard: location, a calm neighbour of rainfall and flood, his journey so far; straight, snag line in silk; a silvered scar. Its wing-clamped body, a reflection of melting candlewax, the bright orange beak, a surrendering flame. Landscape rises, falls, collapses, folds in on itself like a kneaded dough. A conformity of tall trees echo ‘a walk in the park’, intersperse with arboreal bold claim outsiders, parachuted in, garden boundary-breakers, bird seeded, sown, random spread.

    Rills of sunlight, lustrous lines in flash, in sky: little firmament frictions, clouded conflictions, waived convictions, temporary lumens lost and found. An application of silence, followed by wind-sway of branches as they create an aerial enclosure: Deer antlers engaged, locked in mid-battle; for some, an endless fight; others yield, become overwhelmed, are defeated: all reach for light. Clouds collect: forked mashed potato and butter; tines, a compromised gleam of farewell colour.

    Nearby HGV traffic churns, thuds and clanks: a shovel-loaded cement mixer. Rain coats memory of rain: time measured, it creates patinas, paced; falls upon papery brown, black-spotted leaves, which clutch out, upwards; so many hands of mercy. The impactful sound: sauté-simmer oil in saucepan. An embankment of wide grey stone path, all sheen, its shape echoes like the ocean`s skin when torn to adorn, wrap a form:  the breach from the deep, a Humpbacked Whale; glistens as dew upon leaf edge, or just-perceptible new tear on eyelid.  A muck-magnet charred orange peel basketball floats across flash, tugs twigs and a family of dark slime trails attach to slither in its wake. The weight of rain increases: a distant snare drum pattering. Footprints in mud, fill, to become dark wells of anonymity.