POEMS

A Confusion of Parakeets

'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark

our coming and look brighter when we come'

Byron, Don Juan

The Parakeets are banjaxed by the snow:
they're flapping, hovering in a green circle,
bewildered by this white stuff falling
round them, downy, goosy stuff that touches
them then vanishes, leaves them drenched.

We're cool about it: this is not a plague of frogs,
it's snow, which never lies here deep or thick,
or even even, we're too boggy-damp for that.
But now it's sticking, piling up in drifts and
blankets deep enough to cover toecaps, swallow

ankle boots, reach half way up our rubber-covered
shins. We won't be fazed, it's not for nothing
we are called cum Hardy - we just get on with things
(including green exotic incomers). We've lived through
worse - terror, bombs, dole queues, deprivation.

So calm your feathers, lovely parakeets, come down
among us, perch on our linen lines, our backyard
branches, our tool-shed roofs, enjoy the snowy
spectacle, learn it by heart, it won't last long, open
your throats and screech, not with fear, with wonder.

First published in The North Magazine Issue 67 January 2022