Nightingale

Midnight notes, liquid as mercury A feathered body, thistledown- light: A cloud with the soul of a lyre; Dark brown, not gold like his song The song of myths and angels He is a live legend Soldiers in wars remember him Behind their screwed tight eyes Trying to blot out the whizz and bang of bombs His home's in the deep woods, On the thick branch of a thicket His claws hook round his perch Like a twiggy bracelet His notes move through the dark Like beautiful rain uprising Drifting over swathes of moonlit dew On their windy solitary acres In their cotton buttoned nightwear Farm wives turn in their sleep and smile His music penetrates their heavy slumbers Out in the wild, a bronze backed fox Noses between the bluebells' praying heads The nightingale does not sing for such as her The bird'sheartbeat is quick as a running mouse Her song'screscendo, A paean of delight to the birthing dawn