Poem - Blackbirds

3 a.m. I watch the sun rise over Blackstone Edge. A full moon emerges from a bank of cloud. The moon and the sun seen in the same arc of sky - I should get up more often at this very early hour!

5 a.m. there's a faint mist, a blurring of the sight. The mist calms the jackdaws; their calls drop from frantic to conversational. A blackbird is singing most beautifully. Another answers him. Somewhere there is a thrill of blue tits.

By 6 a.m. the birds are silent. Are they, like me, going back to sleep?

Blackbirds

a merl of blackbirds strikes up,

if not virtuosi,

then choice performers,

their coda a scattering

of apple blossom

on a well-kept lawn

© Sheila Wild