After the High Winds

Sap spikes and spider veils
Field mice nudge at bevelled
Beetles’ shells like limousines
Silver trails trace spherical snails
And last night’s winds are ghost quelled.
Birds sense respite, the forest leans  
A shopping-trolley’s wire-frame 
Refracts the flight of wasps and clegs
Two women blether around a pram
A spaniel snuffles and lifts its hind leg
As if this weather were ordinary
Sycamore whirligigs and thin grey twigs
Resume their round of reels and jigs;
Worms dug out by badger’s snout
Mayflies, damselflies, snapping brown trout
Darts of light pick out green,
Gold and black glimpses of the scape
A grim Scots pine storm-felled, thrown
Sectioned, sliced, split like a bone
Site cordoned off with ribbon-tape
Gears engage, cogs rasp and squeal
Wink and glint of rust and steel
Bole and branches, tearing machines
Blades, bark, roots, needles and cones
Savaged and spent with the stump of a groan
After the high winds