Sitting out in this green span, a noon between activities, old magpie keeps me company while soft rain taps verandah tin.
With such care he plants his toes, as if he trod some emerald edge, upon the sodden, lush lawn blades, tentative, and tentative,
pecks there and here at that or this, lifts beak back up in swallowing bliss, while chorus of his kind kazoo; slide-whistles weave in neighbour boughs.
It's when I tear the paper, rip, unzip leaf loose from spiral bind, he takes alarm and broads black back; by trembling hedge he flees my kind.
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This, below, in 1980:-
Out of School T.P.
In these cold hills late hawthorn holds a quiet exhilaration of space, replenishing well, sparkling meniscus of peace.
As an afternoon drunk,~ I clear my head, to gaze gratefully at the thin chink of a moon, sufficient for the day.
...........
T.P. means teaching practice - I was on the post-grad course - three years after university and drifting in casual jobs - Thatcher was in power. Time to get a career quickly. Here, I wasn't drunk but groggy after the blitz of classrooms.
