Blue Tits

Before bird feeders
were invented
these little fellas were surely always supported
synergistically, through the millennia
from cave-lady, drizzling left-overs
to tower block prisoner in thrall, agog for wild creaturely connections
- via back-doors, window-sills, shop fronts, boudoir casements;
impossible to resist their mundane charm and sweet expectancy
of man’s generosity, unmarred by dependency.
The almost subliminal backdrop of their chatty twitter
Is taken for granted unless silenced by smog, fumes, noise and poison
and replaced by a loud, deathly vacuum.

How quick, when the winters grow icy
and the ground becomes hard, hiding bug and seed
they appear, reminding us of their need.
Beyond survival, I wonder if we could measure
the great vats of redeeming pleasure they provide
on bird tables and window ledges
in playgrounds and at park benches
on hospital balconies and in office forecourts
for the young and the elderly, the lonely or disenchanted
when nothing else lovely is there.

There are many cousins, all sorts and kinds
yet all distinctly homogeneous in habitat and habit;
innocent of their own impact,
just being what they are
- bobbles of fluff
and pit-pattering, teeny hearts
chirruping to each other -
happy families, constant companions
without airs and graces
in bite-sized togetherness,
like chaffinch and sparrow;
not for them the depersonalized congregation of rowdy flocks
nor yet the individual agenda of the loners.

Indeed, adherents of the Middle Way -
though to equate their size with modesty would be silly!
But they exemplify the way of balance, moderation, in-between;
minute Buddhas gracing our everyday.