Robin

 Robin

 In conversation,

November wind and Millers restless waterfall,

A skittish robin accompanies us on our walk

If she could talk, she would surely tell us

the skies are about to fall,

or is it the night, hiding beneath God's tearful eyes?

"The trees know"

the robin would say.

"Their roots strain and push against the soil

like an angel's wings sprouting in a starlight shell.

Soon it will be winter

and the angels will descend as dead as snow

as beautiful as a newborn soul."

We carry on walking,

ignorant of the robin's augury of woe,

captivated, by her joyful tone.

'If only we could see the world through her eyes,'

we would think, but not say,

treading through fields of brumal mud,

oblivious to the omnipresent peal

resounding in blood and clay.

 

Shoreditchpoet

 Credit: schnuddel Signature535725799

 

How this poem came about:

Last day in November and my wife and I were walking our dog [Arley] down the country lane that passes our house.

Mild and dizzily, a robin accompanied us along the way.

We pass between fields and a farm that dates back to the Doomsday Book. A bridge, overlooked by concrete machinegun placements built in 1940, when Britons fully expected the might of the Germany army to invade the Shires and Fenn's of southern England.

How different the world would have been had they made that full scale amphibia invasion?

The river, full and vibrant, limp-greige from soil erosion, sediment and phosphorous demanded us stop, listen and pay respect.

The robin followed us. Up the hill to the farm that overlooks the valley. Whose owner (once a doctor) was the first into the concentration camp Belzec when it was liberated. Only to find out, over fifty years later, that the Royal Engineer driver who accompanied him lived on the same lane - less than 400 yards from his [the doctors] historic family [the Marriages] home.

Occasional glimpses of blue sky sneak a peek from the bloated belly of pallid ash. The moon, still visible, reminding us of celestial continuity. It was from here, somewhere in this amalgamation, the poem sprung.