Stepping into the garden, noting the overcast sky,
my nerves tingle at an alarming sound:
toy phaser guns billowing out blasts.
I freeze, eyes sweeping the area.
Is some hidden group of mischief makers
playing tricks?
Little bigger than my thumb,
a dumpy ball of feathers darts from the tree to my left
and into the bush in front of me.
Slim beak opening wide, it punches a complicated trill
full of science fiction sound effects.
Definitely the phaser source.
Troglodytes troglodytes:
Third smallest native bird;
voice unmatched by even the big boys.
A myriad of notes crammed into each second
like some world record attempt,
except this is its daily go-to,
repeated powerfully every time.
A stylish performer
(check out that bright eye liner!),
with stamina enough
to last the whole day through.
No drawn-out interludes here.
In the distance I hear another, song just as loud,
followed by a third.
Their voices soundscape;
already, the clouds have cleared.
The poem below is part of a project I’m doing to raise money for the RSPB, a UK wildlife conservation and protection charity. Being autistic, nature is often my only place of solace, and I want to do all I can to protect it. As I’m not very comfortable around other people, most of the standard ways of helping out (volunteering, ‘traditional’ fundraisers etc.) were not a good fit for me, so I came up with #52weeksofnaturepoetry, where I have to post a nature poem here on this blog each week for an entire year without fail.
If you’d like to help, please share this poem to encourage others to take joy in nature, and if you have the time and means to donate, you can do so here. Let’s help keep our wildlife wild!
(Also, please excuse the formatting. My poems are usually in stanzas, but WordPress always removes them.)
Treeshallow Musings 