In the cold earth, the fat turf, ravens claw
fretboards of stubble and potato root.

Washboard hands, scrubbed raw in Arctic air,
keep time to the wing-beat of ravens across wasteland.

This is all there is, save granite outcrops
black with mizzle and quarrying:

what will they make of the song-thrush
when the hurdy-gurdy of January

churns out across sky? As wind cracks snow
from crags and tugs at loose roof-thatch,

the villagers sing vigil, from the rough-hewn
harbour of heresy, for those still at sea.