Imagine a life reduced to one chair, one window –
outside that window a single tree.
A humble bird cherry, elderly now.
Largely untended its arms all a-tangle, live
ones entwined with others long dead. The whole
shaped and reshaped by winter and winds.
Hear the tree chatter and chunter of seasons,
of storm and of calm, of hoar frost and sunshine.
Hear its bare branches sing of life’s purpose,
its lilting song of spring’s blossom, leaves’ fat buds,
growth, golden fall. Its squirrel-scored
bark a haven for bugs, beetles and grubs.
Dangling low a forest of feeders, stuffed
with seeds, nuts and fat balls. Peanut butter,
dried meal worms on saucers beneath.
See dawn stalk the day, mist cloaked and cool.
Clumsy ghosts move in the mizzle – chubby blobs
set feeders to pitch and sway.

Cool, white sun lurks rather than rises,
shadow shapes morph into birds.
Notice how magpies skulk on high,
how jackdaws gang up, plot a raid. Robins begin day’s
first battle. Blue tits and great tits form great congregations,
busy and busier as they jink and jive. A crew
of longtails, with powder puff bodies bustle,
hustle, fuss about and between. Gymnastic
nuthatch feeds downside up; spotted woodpecker feeds
hard and fast; finches, green, chaff, gaudy gold
twist tiny, sharp beaks into crevice, dried fruit;
blackbird flicks, scatters ground-cover litter; thrush
tracks snails among the silt. A dash, a dart, a sprint
a spurt – turn your eye here, close to the roots – is it pert jenny wren or bold field mouse?
Late afternoon seeps into dusk. Pigeons move in
foreshadowing curfew. Last minute ferment in liminal light.
Stragglers depart. Feeders still. Temperatures fall. Sky darkens. Tree wanes, leaves one window to reflect just one chair.