# Poetry Corner

## Hollows to Valleys

It begins under the float of a sea mist
beading jacket and sleeve,
while, under our boots, iced hollows
snare unwary walkers.

Our pale breath vanishes, puffs
into a ghostly haar.

Where rain has pooled
in lower edges under banks,
the path is claggy,
clogged, no longer the crust
or apple crumble
of sweetly scented autumn.

Instead, from chestnut coppices stark
with cold, a pheasant clatters,
squawks, shatters the silence.

On either side the path,
sloping fields run west, run east
before the knife-edged northerly
as we bear south, wind
on our backs for a winter walk
where downlands are folded
in great valleys like grooves
cut by giants —
sweeping, swooping low.

Now under our feet lie
the curve & curl
of rust & chocolate
waves & weaves —
of furrows still gleaming
from the plough-blades' cut.

*Lizzie Ballagher*