A poem by Will Burns.

The noise rose
from the garden locked
between a hillside field,

a row of small houses,
and the dusty red
tarmac of the tennis court.

A jay and parakeets bright
against the winter dun
and black rooks.

In a canvas chair,
I could have slept for hours
or just sat and stared

into the vanishing sky.
Black-headed gulls
took off from the field,

and I turned to watch
their wheeling pattern that
left the field as bleak as bone.