The morning is sweet
With the bird’s high ether,
Trill, and as full
As their abandon.
The air is warm and fragrant,
Infiltrated with wood smoke
And the earth’s low savour.
In a faraway glance,
The distance fades in to mist.
The morning in the breath is sweet.
Upon me rolls the wave
Of being,
Brought by the voice of the bird
Invisible in the thicket.
With the pick of her beak
And blade of her song
She cuts
The monoculture of mind
Bent on blandness
And domination,
And frees me
From the world of my cage
To world of my own.
A blackbird hidden
Among the high branches
Whittles a song
With the tool
Of its tongue
And sculpts
The undisciplined air
To the fine art
Of a tune,
Whistled and warbled
And finally returned
By the breath
Conveying the voice,
Beautifully transformed.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
Wood pigeons
And the soft-throated dove
Strum the hollow harp,
Cooing summer lullabies
Of love and sunshine
And offering
From feather-puffed breast,
A purring resonance
Put to the warm breeze
Replete with lawn mower whirrings
And the sweet green scents
Of grass, newly cut.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
The blue mists
Of evening’s closure
Blurs vistas
To dreams
And wending paths
Petering and smudged
Until the far hills
Clump with tree forms
To places adrift
White vapours
Plump with beginnings
And mystic spaces
In which only the shrill bird call
Punctuates.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
The finches and dawn tits
Make an avenue of the gardens,
Traversing boundary and fence
As if they weren’t hurdles
But opportunity along the way.
Each March they make their highway here,
Gathering seeds from spent winter stems.
And from pods, crisp in bunches, they cling,
Feeding as if the wait were over
And the joyous work of spring begun.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
Birds
Wet wing above
The scrub and stick
Of winter shrub
And leafless tree
Surfing
The rush and gust
And invisible bluffs
Warping sky’s
Endless grey.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Under blue-grey clouds
Red kites find
Effortless updrafts
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
What is more important
Than summer swallows,
Blue on the wing
Hot on the lifting air
Fulfilled by rising insects
Swarming on scents
And invisible particulates:
The blooms of the sky
The language written hieroglyph
And aerodynamic,
And perfectly attuned
To being – – almost weightless?
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
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