Each year is marked

by the first hearing of the cuckoo.

The perennially evocative sound

that sends shivers up the spine

despite knowing its parasitical habit

bad manners and repute.

It’s heinous errands.

 

I not only heard it today, but saw it

 as it flew from the beech copse

across the meadow to the woods

above the Chewfri river:

straight as a dye, calling as it went.

 

The song echoes daylong

through my bones with a paradoxic glory

as the bluebells and blackbirds

celebrate too

and I, shudder with the strange privilege.