Tea With Isabel

TEA WITH ISABEL

I remember a bright afternoon in August,
a garden,
and tea with Isabel.
Scones and cream with strawberry jam.
No more noise than the thrumming of a distant motorway.
A strange and trenchant chatter shattered the peace,
with a rush of wings and flaring disagreements,
as a confusion of blethering birds descended on a pear tree.

High and dark green, the table was laid -
vertical, with large caramel drops hanging thick.
Starlings in rainbow vests dropped in,
on a pear-shaped heaven,
sun-bright against a sky-blue back cloth.
Ill-mannered gate crashers, greedy and garrulous,
rose up and returned to settle on someone else's left-overs.
We watched, enthralled by their frenzy.

Later, we talk about tea with Isabel.
The memory is bright and lucid now,
now blurred and perplexing.
The recall of those prattling starlings
becomes an emptiness -
of starlings, of memories, of coherent thought.
The thrumming noise grows louder,
is oppressive, overwhelms you.