Last Light

Last Light by Neil McCall

The sun sinks, huge and cold in the smeared November sky;
I long to track the vapour trails to Africa, and fly
to where the women, bright as bee-eaters, would whoop and dance and
clap
in synchronistic shuffle for the prized exotic snap
but for now all that suffices to ward off the growing chill
is a Thermos full of soup sipped slowly on the hatchback's sill.
Then we pack away binoculars and scrape our sturdy shoes
tuning into Sport On Saturday in the hope Man U will lose
and, as the roar of soccer partisans drowns out the wigeons'
wheeze,
a final glimpse of something in the tops of naked trees.
Leaves or birds? I reclaim my binoculars to scan the silhouette
but a gust of wind whips them away and all I see's the net
of bare branches; icy stars in the dark encroaching dome
so we count our birds and blessings and make tyre tracks for home.