Noisy quiet

 

In this puddled field

cricket-blithe after the rain

where frogs rattle and croak deep in grass-hung ditches

I hear the lowing of cattle long gone,

a plaintive moan blowing between the trees

dripping from spring-hazed branches of a different time.

Woodpecker remembers and thrush,

though the hedges are sparse now,

meagre as a cold spring.

They remember days that never ended

carried on the nightingale’s song

moonlit-dancing through the woods.

Silver-dewed and dropped

the field where the pheasant coughs

too shiny new to know anything but triumph

in his hard-won freedom.