Singing Biscuits And Silent Communication Poem by Diana van den Berg

This spring morning
you were almost there
with me
in the non-forested back garden,
and, as so many times before,
you and I sat
with Benji and Cleo
at our feet,
the newly-washed sunshine sky above
alive with a melodious trill
of bird conversations
(Tigger called birds, “meeow biscuits, ”
and from Heaven
he taught Cleo to do the same)
and now and then,
there were way-in-the-distant barks
to which Benji listened carefully
to decide whether
they were pass-on messages,
or needed rush-to-a-wall-and-protect-us barks
or whether they were not about us at all
and he could stay gazing up at us,
and Cleo rolled endearingly on the grass
and purred
to inspire tummy-ticklings
and an almost inaudible bee-hum
of traffic on the distant highway
framed our bliss.

We sat, in a warm, bonding silence
drinking in the spring-time harmony,
your arm around me,
and my head on your shoulder,
both of us motionless, except that
occasionally you squeezed my shoulders
oh, so very, very gently,
and I answered with a cosy little nuzzle
into your neck.

We basked in the promise of summer
in the teasing, soporific sun
forgetful of time,
and the cool breeze
increasing in the dearest little playful gusts
caressed our brows
when the sun touched too much,
and when we had drunk our fill of our Paradise
your eyes swallowed me
whole.

and I paint this poem
so that we have it for tomorrow’s yesterdays.

(14 September 2011)