Pathétique

It’s my favourite time of the year. Will it always be like this, until there’s nothing left to kill?

What working of the mind,
what connections linking eye to hand,
thought and desire to grasping,
breaks the perfection of morning peace,
the majesty of oaks laden with sun,
morning bustle and flutter of birds,
silence of curled sleep in secret hollows,
with the bark and bellow of gunshot?

Is there a darkness in the soul,
a blindness to life and beauty,
to the beating pulse of life,
an inability to let alone, let life walk
the path it chooses?

Sadness clouds the cloudless sky,
dims the sun, cools the rising heat,
and the bushes round the house fill
with blackbirds, robins, finches, fleeing
the outlying trees where death falls
in fury from the sheltering leaves.