A BIRD IN THE HAND

 

Were we to meet again, we might recall that day.

Approach it as we did back then,

on abandoned track: the sleepers long gone

but old ballast lending traction

to our pram wheels – ramshackle, loaded down.

 

Nets and bags, rings and pliers, spring balance,

wing rule, leg gauge.

Ten-foot bamboo poles with guys and pegs to fix them.

Tranquil in the high summer dawn,

reed beds finger chill, pongy with marsh gas.

 

Cloud and damp burned off by the risen sun,

we’d reached the point of humdrum packing up

when that chance capture came.

Stubby legs between white knuckles – I held them tight

while you focussed your lenses.

 

No photo could match that feathered shimmering though,

tense with anticipation of release.

Like arrow from a bow,

a flash of electric blue on orange

fixed our halcyon fellowship.

 

The day we caught a kingfisher.

 

iii. 2019 – xi. 2023

WATCH AND WAIT

A kestrel quarters the allotment, sees

where the eye may take him.

I too find my bearings

in a wild silence of flood plain,

beyond the hum of land management.

Only the draught through branches 

for company. Its fitful swell

and waning at the disguised boundary:

always there must be lawns to mow,

concrete to lay, fences to erect

and guard. A possessed realm.

Even on this dreich day, when time goes back,

it should not be so quiet.

We only know what can be heard:

in sodden woods, where few birds call,

the scrunch of acorns trampled

softly underfoot. A rotten world

until the clocks advance once more.

 

 xi. 2023

CENTRAL RESERVATION

Between the moon and a milkman

a door opens into this day,

cleared of storm-felled boughs.

 

Woodpigeon, barely awake,

warm on the tarmac of country lanes

already summer hot.

 

At a junction of cross purposes

we argue about direction.

Seconds only to choose which turn to take.

 

The motorway claims it is improving

the image of construction.

Concrete spreads like lava.

 

Gorse and ragwort occupy the edges –

the gilets jaunes of highway maintenance.

Hedges, crew cut, like skinheads.

 

A portrait view of bolted lorry backs.

Logistics, freight,

the wheeze and woosh of air brakes.

 

Splayed roadkill litters the hard shoulder:

magpie, fox, and badger.

What remains of spindle-legged deer. 

 

Tiredness can kill –

South Mimms services is break of last resort.

‘Employee of the month’ unnamed.

 

With wary aggression

a herring gull, gimlet-eyed,

patrols the leavings.

 

 A two-mile tailback grinds the other way.

Cow parsley runs to seed;

the first gold blocks of hay, stacked & bound. 

 

Stop & go. Flat earth stares.

In dingy light we watch the sky empty,

but the smug heat lingers.

 

viii. 2023