I Catch In Their Plummet: Poem by Mark Heathcote

I catch in their plummet, shadows leaf.
When fallen, they dance a zebra finch:
From the bars of cages in disbelief,
Years undone, another, inch by inch

The world is capricious a blue disk
The season unfolds in reds and gold
The turning, stops-still like an obelisk
Only-ivy continues lesser the billfold.

A nomad through a veil of vapour-
Walks, beside the vanishing grey lake.
The boathouse sloshes an outpour
Like a heart valve, about to break.

Distantly a church bell sounds, high!
It's as though the world is encapsulated
In a crystal bell, where a bird's cry-
Now dead, still blinks, amalgamated.