A poem by Virginia Astley.

You say the clematis has grown in the night as the moon
imprinted herself and eight petalled stars fell in the hedgerow.
You say the year is turning but these are kingfisher days
and girls in ostentatious cars look blond and frozen.

You ask if I’ve seen the cottage collapsed since last Friday,
three hundred years of cob and thatch lie fractured in daffodils.
Three hundred year timbers exposed to weather, tarpaulin
flails uselessly amongst the rubble and tumbledown.

Listen! You say to the birdsong under these rolling clouds,
far away a child is singing, a rusted gate swings and creaks.
Inside the chapel Sunday-warm, while Bert, a green-bottled
speck, is out ploughing a labyrinth into his hill.

Our valley is brimming with polyphony but we part,
passing the hedge you laid that day when you walked me slowly home.
You say the clematis has grown in the night as the moon
imprinted herself and eight petalled stars fell in the hedgerow.

You say the year is turning but these are kingfisher days.