Poem in the Window – Rosie Barratt

Triggering Summer
by Rosie Barrett

Woken again by the grey line chorus.
Fluting of blackbirds four kinds of tit
a robin or two the resident red spotted
headbanger squawk of a refugee pheasant.

Eyes open to sunshine blue sky and
cooo cooo
Kate Humble on the radio
with black grouse lekking.
Black cocks and grey hens root
cooing and fluttering
in white petticoats.

Here woodpigeons croo croo crooo croo croo
the sound of every summer since forever
perhaps childhood in East Anglia
floods back
or early mornings sleepy with a small baby
in the new house
high on the first ridge after Siberia.

Now on another hillside I plan picnics
for little boys that small baby’s sons.
We’ll splash down the river pick samphire
for supper
swim watch swans glide
upend
ravens circle overhead croak
catch the thermals.
Silent egrets pick their delicate way
and stab.

A proper English summer sometimes wet
sometimes very chilly
but tomorrow…

This poem is published in The Little Black Book of Summer Poems by Hedgehog Press, available soon!