A phone call from a quiet table
He rings me from their house
where they are sitting round the table with
the chair by the window where
the sun comes in empty.
The wood of the table is smooth
and there are patches of quiet
round it, the dust floats in the light
where quiet conversation jars and
snags suddenly on the hanging and
sudden silence
sitting in the empty chair
The air is mottled with quiet
as is a hill beneath a clouded sky
as is light through a window after rain.
I can hear his voice on the phone.
He is a loud man by nature, like his brother.
The other day he called me outside
to show me a hawk being
mobbed by crows.
The hawk was flying
too close to their tree and panicked
they cluttered round him.
We are both in the house during the day.
We don’t talk much, but
we look at the birds together.
He tells me we have run out of cheese,
which we have. He has phoned to tell me
to buy more cheese.
I understand.
I went to let him know when a fox ran across the field.
Silent, flat backed, black feet
he ran in the bright sun.
March 2012
Worm digging
Long light,
the dun bird digs for worms
She roots around in the grass
bringing them up in her beak
Some she puts back
to pick another
Sometimes she stops, and
listens
Twice,
she looks at me before
she takes her worms and flies.
In the tree he sings
It is dusk
It is dusk, he sings.
7th April 2012
