The soft, hesitant ticking of the alarm clock

Usually beside my bed

Now near my desk by the telly

To tell the boys whose turn it is to shoot ’em up

But they’re not here this week

Time’s got a rhythm, but it feels halting

Seconds stretch and trip

Never coming quite when I think they will

Like the kind of jazz drumming I’d like to love but can’t

Too clever too complex

Is it just about to stop?

I freeze my fingers

Pause the click clack of my keyboard to listen

No it still ticks

Of course it does

The batteries are pretty new

Time to keep writing

It’s been so long since it’s just flowed

The table wobbles under my typing

I stop to feel it stopped.

And there’s distant birdsong in my eye line

Through the window in front of me like a multiplex cinema screen

Are ninety-eight thousand shades of green

And one pure Pantone of blue

The tree leaves shuffle and wriggle in the wind

And I stop to watch their wobbly static waltz

A wren, as fast as a bat, and a red-headed woodpecker

Bigger than you’d think

A smooth shallow arcing up and down kind of flight.

Fast too

A sped-up smear of vivid green and he’s gone

A Chaffinch or maybe a Bullfinch I don’t know which

I should look them up

There’s probably an app for that

But my phone is over there and I don’t want it here

There’s a hare as big as a spaniel watching me from the field

Except he’s not of course

I’m behind the glass, motionless, and the wind is behind him

Rippling the spring Barley

It’s grown a foot in the last two weeks

He flicks his head right rotating his ears like radar

He can probably here the keyboard’s clicks

And the soft tocks of my clock

I should put the radio on

I will in a minute