Squeals with the shout of the long-tailed tit;
When the oak branch greens and the blackthorn sheens
And raindrops on nettles slide and sit,
Then the tit, its tail longer than it,
Leaps through the holly, grabbing grubs,
Hangs in the hazel, worries through shrubs;
Grey-white, a slick of pink,
Its folded-fan tail well splashed with ink,
Cuffed by April’s field-boy wind,
Snapping up larvae green with juice,
Circling boughs at hide and find,
It bounces through branches, atop, behind.
How the wide-eyed parsley gapes!
And bluebells giggle like huddled girls;
Ah, the dandelions spill their yolks!
Hunger-sore, agog for mites,
That tit with the red-ring eye, pokes
At stalk base and lichen splash
That spiders will scurry in morsel-fret
For that snub bill of black jet.
Which-way like a leaf on the wind,
Crumpled as a child’s handful of wool,
Ceaseless it scuffs from branch to branch,
Its wings in a stubby blurring blanch,
Upside down, shuttling the void,
Greedy for the next oak’s basking ticks,
By April’s urge, a creature joyed,
Its song all sharps and quicks,
Unstoppable as the spring-wet year,
Here, fled, far, near.
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©
April 2015