ENTER THE DRAGON

Whilst the virus, Covid-19, empties streets and public places throughout the world and roams the land like some malevolent creature intent on slaughter, spring, undaunted, has arrived on the island and our garden is full of birds, birdsong and the beginnings of nest-building. Life goes on.

ST FRANCIS

His gentle eyes are full of sky.
Beasts gather round him, calf and cur,
a feral cat with matted fur,
a tiny field-mouse, timid, shy.
Wrens trip and tremble in his beard
and what the villagers find weird
is how, reflected in those eyes,
are airborne, white-winged, birdlike men,
not human, something else again.