Winters day on the Gayton Road

          by Andy Newbery

Clouds scatter 'cross stormy skies
leafless boughs sigh and break
stark and steep the cold winter meadows
as the wind veers from the north
rippling the  waters of the canal at candle bridge-
the murky depths wrinkle like a curtain drawn across an icy window pane
while high in the swaying pines
a storm cock sends his proud and haunting song
down the windswept lane to chapel hill.