A phone call from a quiet table / Worm digging

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