On the green-yellow grass
of a winter's lawn,
the season warmer

than any other I recall,
wet children with their waterguns
ablaze, are wounded, make noise

as they prepare to die
with all the melodrama
seen on a stage.

I wait,
as is my usual pattern,
inactive, inside the house

that seems a cage, content
with nothing, watching
the younger children

play their mock games
of war and warriors celebrating
victories, real or imagined -

and the birds sing
in the bare trees
where they perch.

Their song sounds
heard from outside,
inside my head reverberates.

I return now to my work;
stay inside,
only in my thought participate.

And read these words
that I have written,
think -

what better sounds than my words
are bird songs on a Winter’s day
which plays at Spring.

The children, with their wet bodies,
hungry, muddy, now
return. As the servant once again,
I see to their needs.

The dog tosses, shakes,
experiences her unpleasant dreams
from which she does not wake.

With all my tasks undone,
I envy her.
I long to sleep.

© T. Birch 2002
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