The New Song

For some time I thought there was time
and that there would always be time
for what I had a mind to do
and what I could imagine
going back to and finding it
as I had found it the first time
but by this time I do not know
what I thought when I thought back then

there is no time yet it grows less
there is the sound of rain at night
arriving unknown in the leaves
once without before or after
then I hear the thrush waking
at daybreak singing the new song

W S Merwin
The Moon Before Morning

Our neighbour brought us a beautiful thrush, stunned after flying directly into her window. ‘You’re good with birds,’ she said.

And it’s true that, sometimes, after an hour or two of warmth and watching, breeze ruffling feathers revivifies, and we have known the joy of tentative flapping giving way again to flight.

But not this time ‘as I had found it the first time’. So there’s been another little burial.

And a flood of metaphors perennial.

And then this morning, at daybreak …

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