Sharon Larkin – “Dawn Chorus, May 2020”

Dawn Chorus, May 2020

Today we have the choice
to listen to the doom on the news
and brood about the gloom
of the world we’re prisoners in
or we can choose to use
this hour we’ve been allowed,

before the joggers are about
to overtake us on the path
with their puff-pant breath
trailing in their wake,
before the lycra-ed cyclists
flash their fashion far too close.

We sneak into the pre-dawn light,
while neighbours are still abed.
A benevolent moon
beams down on us,
our satellite, our sputnik
our fellow-traveller.

We consider the birds of the air
hear them sing their songs
of cheerful ignorance
of human pestilence and fear,

free to stake their boundaries,
coax mates of matching feather,
or simply state their joy
at nests, full of eggs,
joy at the planet they inhabit.

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Sharon Larkin’s pamphlet, Interned at the Food Factory, was published by Indigo Dreams in 2019, and her collection, Dualities, by Hedgehog Poetry Press in 2020. She has over 200 poems in anthologies, magazines and e-zines, including Magma, Prole, Ink Sweat & Tears and Atrium. She runs Eithon Bridge Publications , edits Good Dadhood ezine and blogs at Coming up with the Words.