This Here Spring

A green woodpecker, pecks
at the grass under inches of snow...

great tits – their undulating flight
as they dart in and out beneath
the terrace; in which lantern
will they choose to nest this year?

Academic as it is right now,
but they will bide their time.

Two pigeons try to mate atop
the hedge – slip-sliding in the drifts;
their would-be brood, a mere twinkle
in their eye, with the weather
in its current icy mode.

Weak, dawn sunshine filters
through the blinds... casts shadows –
stripes upon the floor – a velvet
tiger-light of morning. Outside
the fields look blue-white...pristine.

It is unusually quiet – no traffic...just
the muted cawing of a crow and a whine
from a distant jet overflying Luton
to Heathrow.

And then I spot them – like a couple
of kids; brown hares, playing ‘catch-me-
if-you-can’, in and out the fretwork
of the hedgerow. They roll on their backs
have a boxing match...sense my gaze
through the window, and they’re off
like a shot –

yet what they leave behind – magic
to my eyes; their stamp on the world –
their inherent love of life...told by
paw-prints in the snow...this,
here, spring.