Rustlings
How easily happiness is rekindled:
A rustle, a small sound,
Some scuttling visitor excites me.
The hedgehog hasn’t called by for weeks
Maybe he is back?
Or is he hibernating already?
Our garden is so full of life:
Trilling long-tailed tits
Cheeping goldfinches
Dragonflies and honeybees
The occasional laughing woodpecker
And - always - pigeons and crows.
The author of the rustle moves once more
Hyperactive, vibrant, hungry maybe.
Is it mammal, or bird or something else?
Leaves rustle again, and go still.
Nothing for long, long seconds.
This is no bird. It is a skulking thing.
It has jumped and fallen back.
Sounds describe a struggle and a righting.
Then stillness.
I go close. I want to rummage.
My hand is in amongst the crispy leaf litter
I touch a cold body. The frog leaps free.
A Haiku
That pipe tobacco
Resurrects my long-dead Grandad
From 6y-old me
These emerged after I read a poem by William Matthews called Onions, which encouraged pondering of the senses; it can be found here: click
Onions