In early spring
A flock of pigeons takes flight.
A blackbird sings.
I could decide to go inside
As the temperature has dropped.
Yet, the blackbird has not stopped
His song, which brings delight.
So I stay as the day
Moves, imperceptibly, towards the night.
The tinkle of windchimes
And birdsong heard in my mum’s garden
Brought into my mind
Life’s great beauty, and thoughts of mortality.
Just a single, solitary, call,
From a bird heard in the hospital garden
As the twilight
Was swallowed by night.
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Copyright: Kevin Morris
I heard birds in the hospital.
I thought their calls
Came to me through solid walls.
But the doctor said
The birds I heard where recorded sound.
Yet it was profound
For when I am dead
There will be no sound to hear
Of birds or friend’s words.
I cast no shadow on the ward
So will walk in sunshine
While there is time.
I see babies in prams pass me by.
The seasons merge into 1
And I sigh for what is going fast,
And may already be gone.
The sound of carefree children touches me.
I must grope for hope
When women give birth on warming earth
To children who will not see
The season’s cycle as it should be.
At the edge of town
All sound is drowned
By the wind and rain.
The Roman came
And wrote Rome’s name
Here in Britain.
Now I hear the same
Wind and rain.
I heard foxes in the night
There screams of delight
Mingled with wild wind and rain
As I lay alone
Listening for the owl’s lonely cry.
I am alive and thrive.
While the wind
Like a living thing
Gusts. Blowing leaves and dust.
We passed by a tree
Brought down by the gale.
While others momentarily stood
In the ancient wood.
All things fail
And birds, unaware
Sing on with no care
For fallen trees or poetry.
I recall
How an old bough,
Ready to fall,
Blocked the woodland path.
I passed
Pushing it away
On a winter’s day
As birds sang.
The bough still hangs.
It must fall.
And I will recall
How I passed
That old broken bough
On the path
And how birds sang.
K Morris - Poet 