Later found to be a robin
You don’t know your
morning glory from your
nightshade or your nightingale from your lark
and have to be told the rhododendron’s
extra large – the height of twenty men and
uncontested in the west tip of the county.
You nod and ask the times of buses through
to Penzance and St Ives. But you don’t ask
the name of the bird that chirps and whistles
solo without tune outside your window
every night in this last week of June
during Late Junction, making you choose
between clamouring tracks from around
the world and – turn down that dial – the song
of this garden, this one, here, just now.
© Helen Sandler
July 2004
next poem>>
<<previous poem
list of poems
Home