Allen Ashley

Dawn Chorus
 
What message do the birds convey
as with their song they greet each day –
a bright “Hello” or “Go away”?
At six or seven I’d hear their calls
defending trees or garden walls;
too early yet to rise for school.

Then swapping home for student flat –
the burning toast, the bacon fat, 
the toilet flush, a screeching cat 
are sounds and smells that bid me rush
to throw on clothes, to wash and brush,
to hurry for the campus bus.

Soon squeezing onto early trains
to trust my instinct and my brain
to gamble on the Stock Exchange.
The ringing phone’s diurnal trill,
this dealing the eternal thrill,
sustained by caffeine, coke, and pills.

And then my own children arrived –
early mornings, broken nights –
pierce the dawn with needy cries:
feed us, change us, bring us plenty,
help us grow, make us ready.
– Till at last the nest is empty.

I’m bed-bound now; I’m older, fatter,
awakened by the nurses’ chatter,
A squeaking trolley, a bedpan’s clatter.
Another day to be endured –
the smell of piss, the stench of turds.
I wish I could still hear the birds.

Allen Ashley has recently been published online in Sein und Werden, The Broken City and The World of Myth. He is the founder of the advanced SFF group Clockhouse London Writers and the reading group The Cosy Gang. His chapbook “Journey to the Centre of the Onion” was published by Eibonvale press (UK) in 2023.