Welcome back to the garden for the next in this series of Lockdown Poems.  These strange lengthening days are bringing us new experiences – some are very unwelcome, but others have something to show us, something that might help us navigate our way to a better world after….
I hope you are finding moments of tranquility.  You are welcome to come and sit on this bench in your imagination, and hear the sounds of spring.

What has struck me, like so many others, is the birdsong we can hear as our human hubub has quietened.  Although we live very near a small wood, I haven’t heard the birdsong from it before – not from the back of the garden, well past dawn.  Sometimes, in May, you can hear the dawn chorus before the traffic begins, but now there is very little traffic, and the wood’s loudness is astonishing.

I hope you can hear birdsong where you are.  Here’s a link to a recording of the dawn chorus in the UK if you’d like to listen

So, here’s another poem which emerged from my practice of trying to deepen into contemplative prayer, but being open to the sounds of the natural world as they speak.

The wood – lockdown 6

This April morning,
not even particularly early,
I sat on this bench,
allowing my breath to deepen,
and settling into presence,
and into Presence,

I heard, for the first time,
the sound of the wood –
not too far away,
across the grey snake
of the road.

I heard it like a distant choir,
together and rejoicing,
or an orchestra playing jazz –
wild, improvised,
I heard it as the sound of life,
reaching me even here,
across the silent road,
unquenchable,
green through the blue air,
calling the trees awake,
calling the bluebells – up, up,
and flowing round
the fragile white anemones
as they bow their many heads.