Mike Jenkins
Skylark and Violinist
1
‘Just listen to the skylark!’ he said
as we stood on the iron-ore spoiltips
reclaimed by crackling, sinewy heather.
Its song rose into a blueness
without a trace of the bird
as if reed and fern were singing.
‘Derelict land!’ we mocked official description
as three boys held fishing-rods aloft
bobbing to the pond. Across valley
other reclamations were plasticky green
where occasional marauding crows
ventured (no whinberries or wild flowers).
2
She appears, you can watch her:
the lark made human
her eyes turned upwards,
fingers feathering trills.
Pauses, silences of the air
also music as the bird breathes
before her playing ascends towards
the flight-paths to America.
Orchestra are soil and seams,
but we are taken higher
losing horizon-lines of her score
no boundaries between sky and moor.
Page(s) 27
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