Photo ©Fentriss

There are foxes and badgers and hedgehogs that snuffle and rootle and dig beneath the windows at night, deer and hares that dance in the meadow, boar that dig over the soft earth beneath the willows and the poplars. There are barn owls and tawny owls that call or shriek through the dark hours. There are barking dogs, sleepless cocks and frogs that sing on the pond. But what keeps us awake is the chomping and chewing, scampering skittering and general cavorting of dormice in the attic, newly woken from their long winter fast, ravenous as wolves, rowdy as a pack of adolescents on a Saturday night.

Moon wind blows clouds
silver edged above the trees
owls etched in silver.