Recently, I seem to be waking very early. One morning when I checked the time it was four minutes past four; it occured to me I should be writing a poem with the line “4:04: sleep not found”. 
That idea didn’t seem to go anywhere, but here are a few pre-dawn lines:
awake again at 4 am
birdsong weaves around the house;
the chorus swells and fades
in fugal waves of sibilance
to spin a spell that teases out
the softening grey.
The neighbour’s cat croons throatily;
songbirds squeak and whirr:
the new day eases slowly into gear.
Most of the photos I post on the blog are of flowers. Indeed, most of the photos I take are of flowers. That’s partly because I like them, but also because plants are helpful enough to keep still when I point a camera at them.
That said, it’s been very windy recently which means that the plants haven’t been such good sitters. So I was looking back over pictures that I’ve taken in the last month to find something to post, and was surprised to find several quite successful ones of birds, who are normally far too flighty to make good subjects for my scant camera skills.
I went out early today, but the birds must all have been awake long before me and when I left the house the noise in the street was startlingly loud for a Sunday morning. I suppose they were busy discussing air pressure and wind speed, temperature and flight paths or whatever it is that birds talk about before they get moving in the morning.
There was so much sound, but no movement and not a single bird to be seen even though the trees are bare of leaves and they must surely have been visible as dark blotches among the branches. 
Continue reading “no movement but sound”
above the hum and buzz of insects
the fluttering chatter of songbirds; higher still,
the sour weep and bark of eagles
As I’ve said before (in the old post bluebirds and probably elsewhere) I’m not particularly fond of birds but they tend to crop up a lot in my poetry.
Continue reading “soundtrack”
don't confuse the narrator 