Birdsong


Early March – a morning dog-walk
and a good one: weather perfect,
crocussed, snowdropped, bright with promise...
archetypal Spring.

Heading home on auto-pilot
when, from nowhere, I'm aware of
it – an unfamiliar cadence
dancing at my ear.

I've no chance identifying
anything beyond the easy
stuff – but this?  I'm sure I've never
heard its like before:

repetitive yet blithely tuneful
– there it is again! – that same brief,
jaunty, upward-swept glissando,
signed off with a trill.

Fifty yards to go and still it's
with me – louder now, I'd swear, and
nearer: sweet, insistent, clear
above the trunk-road din.

What's brought this wonder here? – this stranger,
skies apart from everything
its alien eye might comprehend?
Freak winds? ...or something worse?

That's it alright, poor thing: a refugee
and omen of catastrophe,
lost in a desperate search
for water / shelter / food...

evidence, if any such
were needed, that the planet's fucked
beyond all hope.  And we're to blame.
Repent.  The End Is Nigh.

At my gate, they overtake me:
headphoned, head-down, texting, teenage
parents with a third-hand pram,
one wheel in need of oil.

Ken Cumberlidge


If you have any thoughts on this poem,  Ken Cumberlidge   would be pleased to hear them.