like the low hull of a submarine like strata like an estuary of land, scattered with island farms like a ghost of fallen grass like green clouds like the sound of a stream of wine spilling from a height into a deep and booming cask like something I meant to say but could never quite remember like the arch of Orion like another limb like a tightening spring like Mars, but glowing still like knights or sportsmen like a knife like circles of raw liver like a lemon stuffed in the mouth of a boar’s head like the distant drumming of a snipe like the cork out of a bottle like spray like sticks of rock like watery reflections moored to still, black shadows like a black billhook in splinters of white wood like a threaded spider from the web his wings had spun like a drifting sycamore seed like a distant curlew like hands unfolding like a galaxy like a potter spinning like a horde of beetles gleamed with gold chitin like the tide like a line of snow like the waders, looking up at the dark crossbow shape of the hawk like toy soldiers formed up for battle like stones, or trees, or men when they are dead like a Jurassic saurian, fetid and inert in a swamp like a dwindling white corona like jets of smoke like a full-fed pike between reeds like gnarled and twisted oak like branches like salt like rings of small black stones like the black funnel of a whirlwind like drowned blood like waves upon the shore like touch of dock on nettled finger like white pebbles on brown earth like a beast in pain like water gliding over stone like mail in glittering spray like plaited tawny and brown ropes like a fish cleaving up through warm blue water like the scales of a trout like a boat at anchor like ripe wheat like a goshawk like a triangle of luminous copper like rain like a dog shaking spray from his body like a snipe like flies worrying a horse like the black ‘armpit’ markings of a grey plover like the hood of a cobra like a heron calling in its sleep like trying to hit blowing feathers with a dart like the dim brown ghost of an owl like eagles seeking snakes like the warm embers of a dying fire like a small brown priest in a parish of dead leaves and wintry hedges, devoted till death like fans like sculls that touch and feather through a river’s gliding skin like a bar of river gravel like deep-voiced snipe like polished wood like velvet like a winged firework hissing up to glory like stones skidding across ice like a partridge like spray from a breaking wave like water from the back of a diving otter like a puppy frisking after butterflies like dead leaves like black searchlight beams like the survivors of a battle like dunlin like a rocket like a man falling out of a tree like a transient beam of sunlight like mown grass like a huge snipe like the winged helmet of a Viking warrior like curlew crossed with mallard like cattle like a distant orchestra tuning up like a chime of distant hounds like round stones skimmed across ice, humming, rebounding, vibrating like sun and shadow on the woodland floor like a shadow like a mask; macabre, ravaged, sorrowing, like the face of a drowned man like a song thrush banging a snail on a stone, but it came from above like a plating of dead leaves like verdigris like falling acorns like the glowing puffed-out fieldfares in bushes by the river like a pulse like white chalk like a tawny kite cut from the earth beneath him, yellow as stubble, barred with dark brown like golden grenades like the flights of an arrow, rippling and pluming above the rigid shaft like a spadeful of brown earth like waders, unwilling to fly, brown and white as the sand beneath them like spray like a wave like the oars of a long-boat like a lens of ice like dominoes being rattled together on a pub table like tawny gravel on the bed of a clear stream like scarlet agaric shining through a dark wood like sails like pointers, listening to the mud like thrushes on a lawn like sleeping huskies like blackened tree-stumps like milk and mother-of-pearl like a sleeping dog like the conventional pictures of young peregrines like a brilliant eye like a dead star, whose green and turquoise light still glimmers down through the long light-years like a mantling hawk like black fruit like the waving flicker of a fish’s fins like an autumn leaf, passing from shining gold to pallid yellow, turning from tawny to brown like blood pounding in a caged heart like an ivory bone like the glowing veins of withered leaves like paint like a wading bird, happy only at the edges of the world where land and water meet, where there is no shade and nowhere for fear to hide like little brown monks fishing like starlings like damp squibs like a snipe, jinking and bouncing about like an uncoiling spring like a manta ray flicking along the bottom of the sea like woodpigeons like a tipsy snipe like a distant striking of matches like shingle beaches like seams of granite in a moorland waste like crimson flame like a sodden umbrella like heavy unwieldy oars like paper like swords like flinging white foam like a puff of gunsmoke like a single golden wing like a salmon leaping like wet canvas like a hooked pike glaring from reeds like strips of polished leather like wet flint like winkles on a plate like flying snow like a mash of raw beef and pineapple like a man descending through the trap-door of a loft and feeling for a ladder with his feet like a broken parasol like a small mad puritan with a banana in his mouth like a sunset on silver scales of birch bark like smeared blood like the mauve rim of a clear sky where the sun has just gone down like the pupil of an eye as it passes from day’s brilliance into dusk like a shadow like a burning moon like chain-link fencing like a frozen wave of green like debris from the flying curve of earth like blue smoke fuming from the sun like the soiled whiteness of shadowed chalk like an endless silent singing like a burrowing fuse like a jumping cracker like a nuthatch like a freshly peeled onion like faded moths like a glistening water shrew like barbed wire cut by pliers like a wounded bird, floundering, sprawled like a flawless crystal like a log in the tide like broccoli like the shadow of something higher like the plumage of a stuffed bird in a glass case like sulphurous craters like jellies of yellow blood like an owl like red and gold chain-mail like the dust on the skin of a grape like a frozen muscle that will flex and wake at sunrise like a speeded-up recording of the song of a nightjar, rising and falling, slowly slurring and fading, ebbing and whimpering away to silence like points of distant fire like flakes of beech bark like the smack of wood on wood like a pale yellow crescent inlaid with ivory and gold like living in a foreign city during an insurrection like an aircraft taking off like the cavalry at Balaclava like a bone breaking like a brilliantly coloured toad like a luminous-sharded rain beetle like a crackle of silent film like a big nightjar like the striding legs of a water beetle, like cattle making way like small brown coracles, fat-bottomed, and kettle-shaped like bars of ice snapping like a steep-rising teal like a treecreeper like flycatchers like a pair of gaunt grey crutches like a torpedoed ship like a toy train that is meaningless away from its rails like a withered apple, shrivelling, dying like a ring of steel round the head like a glaring, severed head looking up from the snow-flecked road like a cloud of shining hair like a twig lashing back like a hawk swooping like rain on a tin roof like magnesium like cold fire like a band of straw twined round the base of his tail like a barb in the blue flesh of sky like canvas in the lash of the wind like a heart in flames like green snow fallen on white fields like a huge, inverted, golden pear like a compass needle cleaving to the north like a dart like white steel like death like a mouse in dry grass like the calm drift of smoke above the rage and fire of battle like a wild hawk fluttering miserably above the cage of a tame one like a distant arrow flicking into a tree like the waving grass like an arrow, dipping and darting like a swallow chasing a bee like a short-eared owl like a big, sleepy merlin like the patches of red soil that stain the ploughlands to the north like a nostril on the white face like a bison like a departing god like a burning brand like a spar of light like a swift rebounding flame like wet fur like a Red Indian stalker with all but his head concealed in shaggy buffalo hide like deer suspicious of the wind like sand, and mud, and shingle, and the sere grass of the saltings like the fur of a snow leopard like polished brass like a buoyant moon like two owls striving to meet through the water’s shining skin like fish rising to a gay resplendent fly like brown globes in the long sockets of the moustachial bars like tarnished bronze like an owl like a pigeon cooing like a beam of light like comparing a borzoi with a collie like a reddish-gold arrow suddenly wedged in a tree like a cliff collapsing into the sea like a plank hitting mud like a single claw like satin like dust like a broken tooth like a fish that is suddenly free like a gun as the golden feet flash forward to strike like an ivory boat like an eye blinking like a woodpecker like grazing cattle like a setting sun like a tiger carrying a bullock like a gambler who cannot resist just one more throw in the hope that his luck will change like a splendid copper vessel splashed with gold like the mineral film coating the lenses of binoculars or the bloom on the dark skin of a plum like wintry sunlight shining through the thickness of a wood like pollen like smoke above the sacrifice like fish flying like coral like wound clockwork toys slowly spluttering into silence like waves lifted from the water like someone breathing in and then gargling like the nail-studded sole gaping from an old boot like the zip-fastener of a gruesome nightdress-case like a dead flower among spilt petals like the pilot fish that swim before a shark like a falling head, a shark’s head dropping from the sky like the wind harping through high wires like hot metal like a splinter of wood flying from a cut log like the ribs of a wrecked ship like a doll’s eyes closing like one of those trick photographs of a familiar object like an animal’s legs like a two-legged head like a distant curlew calling in a dream like a man trying to escape from a maze like the low jowl of a bloodhound like a fencer’s foil like a monkey like a snipe like the head of a snake looking out of a rock like the pupil of a distant eye like music breaking like a sleepwalker like a shield of silver water like dark ploughland after rain like an otter in the startled water like mirages distorted like big thrushes like black shoes half covered with buttercup dust like a munching bullock feeding on hawthorn leaves like fingers lightly touching a hot iron like the blade of a ham knife like a black diamond like a succession of giant arrows thrumming violently overhead like a rush of pike-torn water like strange primeval butterflies clinging to a huge tree-fern in a steamy prehistoric jungle like a moving film, like a mad clown like windmill sails walking like fins like tentacles like eyes like an owl like cloth of gold like piglets like a ball bouncing less and less like a woodpecker drumming a triangle like the prow of an icebreaker like a coloured bead pinned to his head like a broken vase like dark water