In Praise Of Bricklayers Poem by Christopher Woodall

The end of March and a magpie dances on our aerial,
The first endless egg turns up in the pond, white and empty
As an old skull, tiny as the pink blossom shivering
At the fingers and elbows of next-doors Winter Cherry.

Light on the brickwork makes the mortar accountable
In a way that human love can never be understood
Beyond mating rituals and never ending procreation
And episodes in the passage from innocence to adulthood.

The universal feeling of passing through a dinner party
Like a ghost, like unseen motes leaving by the open door
Like an unanswered letter languishing somewhere
Or a mutual thought that is not shared anymore.

The old laughter which has waited as bulbs in the ground
Now bursting in wounds of yellow and white,
And settling down into a recognisable rhythm
So love, although incomprehensible, is visible in life.