Year's Turn in Tanygrisiau

A darkened world,
the colours drained
to a thousand sodden greys.

Beneath my feet the wet road lolls
its roughened tongue,
studded with mica grains;

a phosphorous light spills
snow-slush greys on evergreens
that crowd the garden's rim.

By the rockery, a solitary clue
of Christmas white; heaped remains
of frozen ice, two twigs, a scarf.

The wind whines above
the hiss of white-noise stream;
a flickering film.

The trees shudder a Mexican
wave.  The overhead cables
hang like skipping ropes

from a shivering sky
ripped by fireworks
that light the fraying clouds.

Beyond the fence, the granite heft
of mountainside whale-backs
against a starless sky. The marshland sags

around the wincing trees
that lean, like stick-man skeletons,
towards New Year.