Anticipating baton’s beat
the redbreast trills the starting note
before day’s orb peers over backstreets,
opens up his boastful throat.
Then blackbird’s improvising weaves
a fluting countermelody,
inciting Jenny Wren’s crescendo,
chiffchaff’s seesaw hymnody.
Sparrows’ urgent chirps now merge
with traffic’s distant growing rumble,
songthrush ostinato verse
and pigeons’ constant wheezing grumble.
Thus Nature’s daily sung aubade
invades the street as well as glade.
Written for a Twitter readalong of Philippa Pearce’s Tom’s Midnight Garden
Zenrinji 