Beneath the Daylight Moon

When does he sleep?
Still oddly visible the daffodils flutter at the edge of sight. He has  knocked the nests from the trees, eaten his feast of small birds and left the puzzle of their bones to stitch the breech. Now is the sanctuary evaporate. In the gusty half-light of his mind he sees his mate vining the ribbon of her path towards him in ivy and bindweed. The slatey smell of blackberries in the rain makes him suddenly gentle. Across the field a cow lows for her lost calf, the church bell clangs its iron call and the moon hangs like a turquoise thumbnail in the sky. He is almost spent. He counts up what is missing: a gospel spanner, turbulence and song. The words lie on his tongue like  jelly and melt. Once in a blue moon he succumbs to his mate's embrace, sings to the stones and the air, and then, sated with glory, he finds the time to lay his great head upon the earth's bed, and sleep.

The copyright of this post belongs to Claire Steele