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PATROL 

It  is uncertain just how long we stood
stamping our boots, clagged from the boggy wood
specking the road with shiny lozenges of mud
or watched  breath wreathing still december air.
Across, a grey horse, statuesque, whinnied once,
over the stable door - then shared the silence

Then from the nearer ground
with no announcing sound, a hound,
her coat a sleeky  blueish-pinky -grey  
with gentle bustle and enquiring gait
unthrusting yet not circumspect
wove her tail-wagging way around our two's and threes
as pleased she thrust her nose, waist high, 
softly into fondling hands

then, paused and turned to one, the last, a little stood apart
and looked - and closed - and pressed a gentle nudge
as if  to say  ' Yes, yes. You too are good
to notice - to be so included and so understood. '
How simple to be so received and so addressed.
 
Our greeting past, she turned and loped 
across the grass,  leaving us unlooked for gladness.
Quiet deepened and the cold increased.
Pressed by the fading day , we heaved and   
braced our packs for the  long way  back.
And setting out
a peace in our unspeaking seemed to show
that  knowing or unknowing
in those moments we were blessed somehow.