Robin

Too cute a name for some
A common-place cliche
Perched on typic spade handles or in holly on christmas cards.

But you are no mere hedgerow creature
You hover between wild and tame
Familiar with allotments and back gardens
In a symbiotic contract with humankind
Ever since he moved from hunter, to till the soil.

Yet the open fields are no safe venue for you
With hawk and buzzard prowling above
And swooping crows and gulls swarming behind the plough.

You jack-in-the-box out of the hedge
Alighting on a fence post
And scan for breakfast from a safe vantage
Assessing the options.
Was it the sound of boots scrunching or voices
That signalled to you
Or the smell of fresh earth or man’s sweaty brow?

You have no need for wide skies
No need for distant migrations to find a worm or seed.
From your safe nest in the hawthorn
- Look-out, refuge, palatial territory -
No place for more than tit or wren
You come and go, dart in and out
Patrol your territory and secure its boundary
You and your mate, somehow proportionate.

There is something neat, local and personal about you!
Not for you the babble of flocks
Of gossipy group-souls and gregarious, urban clutter
Nor yet the solitary, hermit-watch of magpie, cuckoo, crow
But a sense of family, small scale, self-sufficient.

When you pop into sight
It is something special, outside of everyday expectations
The Aha of sighting the first snowdrop or mushroom sprung
- Snowflake, rain-drop in slow-motion
Your tiny heart pulsing so mine skips a beat
Your twiggy toes latched securely yet poised to nip back to your bush
- And it feels a more friendly day.