Lancashire Meadow Poem by James Andrews

Six miles of footpaths
Field, riverbank, dell, forest.
Cumulous and blinding blue.
The only sound the distant hum
Of power lines.
Cows fix me with baleful glares.
I am the invader.
In one field I feel a strong shove
And turn to see an outraged bovine face
Glowering from a foot away.
Cross an old quarry alive with rabbits,
Sink to my ankles in the muddy bottoms
Of the pastures.
At a fence I come across an old man looking at the sky.
'See that? ', he says, pointing.
'Wind southeast,
Rain over Preston.
Twenty minutes there'll be a shower.'
It was twenty-one.