Up on the top of Hambledon Hill

head bent beneath low cloud.

Distant landmarks invisible,

but sunlight filters through somehow

to illuminate the hazed valley below.

Darker, lower cloud creeps up behind me

stealthily enveloping everything in its path,

including me, eventually.

A fox barks in crepuscular depths of wooded slope

while a skylark displays undaunted - a ray of hope.

The sound of pattering on my damp coat, 

like rain on canvas – camping weather this!

So that wasn’t mist going to lift after all,

but cloud coming down … and down till

it obscures all but the fields at the foot of the hill.

The cloud and the rain move on,

slowly without the aid of the wind,

revealing the landscape once more.

Yellow fields of rape bright against grey sky

and fresh, washed leaves harsh on the eye.