A Glimpse of a Merlin

There and gone

I’m sitting on the bow of my narrowboat in the failing October light. Every few seconds an acorn lands in the canal with a soft plip. Larch needles are gathering in the boat’s gutters. In the little wood nearby the ground is littered with chestnuts. Spiders are dropping from the trees. They land and crawl into the gaps between windows (or they land on m…