AUBADE

I raise the blind of the small dormer window.

A night of rain has filled the cast iron gutter.

A jackdaw is perched on the rim sipping.

Suddenly the bird lifts off to join

a clattering of jackdaws mobbing

a buzzard. We are two hundred feet

above the littoral – once under sea

but now mostly pastoral land,

the fields a dull gold in the autumn dawn.

The shore is a mile away – but opening

the window brings the waves’ roar like unending

traffic. The buzzard banks, drops – jackdaws disperse.

Far beyond are Snowdonia’s peaks

and passes: mauves, purples; shadows and mists;

endless dry stone walls; glacial memories.

A perfect rainbow forms between us

and the distant mountains – in the gutter

rainwater still as glass.