It comes in waves    
always at the same speed 
no matter how you observe it.
Pink foot geese left last week
owls more silent with fog 
 
duck feathers whistle in flight 
the first white primrose is in flower
bold fallow deer browse the rosemary
foxes already barking for mates.
I can smell the badgers 
 
and see their rumbling shapes
in late twilight as they circle 
under a skirt of yews –  
in courtship they groan and scuffle  
and I think about loving you – 
 
slow down time crescent moon
everything we feel 
as the year continues its turn
is offered in the afterglow  
of starlight from the beginning. 
           
 

 
  

Daphne Astor is an American-born British conservationist and farmer working with literary and visual arts organisations in the UK since 1977. In 2016-2017 she founded and curated Poetry in Aldeburgh, she is currently chairperson of C4RD and was a long-term trustee of the Poetry School. Her poetry has appeared in several anthologies and magazines including Magma, Finished Creatures and Coast to Coast to Coast. She recently became publisher and editor of Hazel Press.

Poem and photograph © Daphne Astor 2021