Blackbird

We’re lying in a hammock, balanced, slung
between the apple tree and garden shed,
swinging where the children often swung.

As the curved horizon turns wine-red
where only moments past it shone pale blue,
the shifting winds bring neither cloud

nor sunshine, but a blackbird’s song –
a tune mislaid, but one we always knew
we knew. It keeps us hanging in its threads,

like children trembling on a ladder’s rung:
the unknown in the gifts a blackbird brings;
the echoes of the songs it leaves unsung.