Chapter 3

In a damp, cold wood a blackbird calls out:

chacka-chacka rings out, echoes empty.

Chackering magpies in empty boughs.

Lonely crow croaks from atop a bare oak.

Sharp February wind drives clouds out of the sky.

The clear moon having its heel nipped by it’s own descent.

Under the bows of a Yew Tree, black night is deepest:

I am drawn into the boughs; called into something beyond.

Long tail tits flitter around wet grey-green branches,

their long tails slapping softly against wet twigs.

Three days of heavy snow blurs the houses, dusts roofs,

suffocates trees; sinks the world deep.

A crow is pushing against the wind but pushed back;

Drops exhausted to the ground and walks.

A lavender tree with bowed head of violet flowers;

the smell of grandmothers and soft childhood.

Spring hangs heavy in the tangled hedgerows,

Nodding nettles, grasses high with broom.

Open the window fully for the first time this year

and the first wasp comes in and chaos havoc.

Now the grass is tall enough to move in the wind,

to move back and forth, side to side.

The deep magic of the thick wood:

shadows between quiet trees, distant birdsong.

As if nature has suddenly spurted into life:

flies, wasps, late blossom and white daises in the field.

Spent horse chestnut catkins – fragile grey skeletons

waiting for the wind to crumble them into dust.

An oak tree in full, thick foliage:

no greater strength in all nature.

Trees lean over, heavy with leaves,

regretting all their bare winter moaning.

The blossom on the hawthorn dabbed thickly

like fat smudges of snow.

A summer rain storm flashes, grumbles, goes on

until the water pours past, down the road, down.

Pools of water on the curb – silver black surface

ripple with flickering patter of raindrops.

The sky blotchy with clouds

like the skin of an old man too long in the sun.

Rain falls in long straight lines

like the open mouth of a sperm whale.

Long tail tits cross from hawthorn to hawthorn;

the air spiked with their urgent piping.

Rooks coming over, hundreds of them

like bomber squadron; squawking and diving into trees.

The road under chestnut trees

dotted with squashed conker shells.