The crows cruise by the church in close formation.
They bank in search of something I can’t see.
My years on earth, less hard to count than crows
against the sun as the flock flies by at speed,
accelerate until whole decades pass
in days through spaces that had taken years
to navigate the first time, then they’re gone.
The duck song wakes me, singing our canal
into existence, snipping bolts of dark
from the cloaks the waking duck-and-coot cabal
flew in the face of nighttime in the park.
Crows fly until the sun, touched, tips the earth
so light leaks in. Wood pigeons coo the grass.
A falcon scream creates a stream that’s worth
a trip, the other birds think, and they pass
my window in review in ones and twos.
Their songs connect canal and stream to lakes
where herons intone fish and note which choose
to dive or be the breakfast they will take.
I, also recreated by bird song,
salute the flocks and, singing, fly along.
This garden hedge can stare me down with ease.
It has more eyes, perhaps a million more
from thrush to spider and on down to spore.
They gaze at me relentlessly and seize
the thoughts that I would concentrate on you.
Each takes a bit and laughs at it until
the birds fly off and spring’s first wasps go still.
I’d write an ode but find I’m laughing too.
Come, gather with me in these closing days
when poets praise and politicians raze
what makes a human beautiful and wise.
Come, gather with me what the children’s eyes
see clearly, once each lifetime, and remember,
increasingly nostalgically, till they die,
revering till blood’s river runs towards dry
and bones creak brittle, loosening hold on sinew.
Come with me, gather. Help me find some light.
The squirrel was demonstrating how to build up all logic gates just from NAND but the visiting pair of jackdaws wanted to move on and discuss Shelah’s classification of countable first-order theories. We did that for long enough (35 seconds) to see that none of us had any idea what we were talking about. The husband jackdaw noted that darkness was approaching and the wife jackdaw pointed out that negations, such as darkness, can’t ‘approach’ or in fact ‘do’ anything. I was wishing we had met outside instead of in my study, birds not being noted for being continent. The squirrel sensed my concern and asked, ‘Is that the cat behind the sofa?’ Both jackdaws flew out the window but they will be back at first light …
The candidates from hell stand tall and say
they want to build a wall around the troubled land
that they claim their vengeful god ordained for them.
Their heaven — they will turn it into hell —
will be a land of evil where they wrap
themselves in flags pretending what that means
is that they care about the people they are scaring
into hating other groups so they won’t see
that they vote away their chance of living free.
Bright sun, sharp wind, the ferry nearing Marken.
What better way to start this afternoon
on the edge of what was once the Zuiderzee?
No bathers on the beach, no fighting ducks,
no economists dissembling spurious truths,
just neighbours neighing nostrums to each other
and a solitary man I thought I knew
once long ago who scribbles in a book.
.
Marken is a village across the water from Monnickendam.
Earth Tourist 