Nightingale Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Midnight notes, liquid as mercury
A feathered body, thistledown- light:
A cloud with the soul of a lyre;
Dark brown, not gold like his song
The song of myths and angels

He is a live legend
Soldiers in wars remember him
Behind their screwed tight eyes
Trying to blot out the whizz and bang of bombs

His home's in the deep woods,
On the thick branch of a thicket
His claws hook round his perch
Like a twiggy bracelet

His notes move through the dark
Like beautiful rain uprising
Drifting over swathes of moonlit dew

On their windy solitary acres
In their cotton buttoned nightwear
Farm wives turn in their sleep and smile
His music penetrates their heavy slumbers

Out in the wild, a bronze backed fox
Noses between the bluebells' praying heads
The nightingale does not sing for such as her

The bird'sheartbeat is quick as a running mouse
Her song'screscendo,
A paean of delight to the birthing dawn