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(after William Barnes)
One robin atop red-berried hawthorn
sings farewell to late summer
each time I go out into the garden.
Save for him the place is dumb
summer birds silent now
no blackbirds or sparrow chatter, no finches or wren.
Sometimes a magpie cackles
or a passing gull calls from a distance
a skein of geese hoots
through the valley on their way to somewhere else
a straggling swallow turns and dives
before it flicks away on the next rise.
A jet fighter sears the air
filling all our space with its roar.
We are all silenced. Even the robin.
*Lincocut image by Karen Little @kazvina. First published with my poem 'Sparrows' in the anthology 'How Quickly it all Passes', 2024
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