SPRING SONG

The chestnut leaves fan out in each glued sheath
above the stiffness of cow parsley stalks
from last year's summer. Sycamores in leaf
hold up the sun in fractured gold; it walks
the morning's blue as blind as hope;
beams stray across the floor and wake
sown chasuble and living cope
beneath the tree's green lake.

The thrush's eggs are stolen from the sky,
their milky blue concealed beneath her breast.
She listens to her mate who, perched on high,
decants his song upon the waiting nest,
notes echoing from surrounding trees.
The ash beside him stretches out
the charcoal of its buds to seize
the wind and shake it out.

A hedgehog's belly sings a dried leaf song.
Forget-me-nots and kingcups barely stir
at shallow stream-edge, bubbles borne along
beside the alders where each brier and burr
recalls the late year's flowering day.
A vole swims through a molten stream
ignited by a moving ray
as in another's dream.

The anemone, white-hot, throbs in the drifts
of autumn leaves while rusted bracken rears
its curling fiddleheads so green it lifts
them into fantasy. The light wind wears
a smell of loam and crowding spores;
it tugs the leaves and bends the hair
at nape of neck; and on all fours
we'd like to crouch and stare.

A sunken path goes wandering through the wood,
feet sinking in its cradle of dried leaves.
Beside a field a barn for centuries stood,
now fallen to the ground; dog's mercury weaves
its roots among the shattered tile
and spikes of celandine have lanced
the earth. The path stops at a stile:
the secret's now enhanced.

You cross the creaking steps. A lattice-work
of oaks holds out its arms against the cloud.
Wood pigeon breathe insistent charms; they lurk
in pairs around the path or, single, crowd
the boughs above. The wood now ends,
and in its skirt coltsfoot, brome-grass
have found the light. A gateway sends
up dust where cattle pass.

And there among cow droppings and chickweed
you breathe the ancient smell. Hands on the post,
you feel faint warmth, aware there is no need
to move: this place is just as good as most.
The air is soft, the cloud is dark;
and underneath its black you hear
the random glory of the lark,
to you and death so near.

Uncertain phoenix, now it climbs the stilts
of heaven, fainter as it flies. You seize
forgotten notes. In may a fieldfare tilts
its head, down ruffled by a passing breeze,
snaps up a wrinkled hip and whirs
away. 'Sweet, will you, will you kiss
me, dear?' the chaffinch loud avers,
'or spring may summer miss!'