The balance of life and death

rests on a dot in the sky

whose frivolous shivering breath

rivals the moths in its quivering

rippling hovering, high

and triumphant amongst the cumulus,

the twin-piping syrinx delivering

an opus more complex, more tremulous

and vaporous than any cantata.

The minstrel of the meadow 

sees the grasshopper climbing,

sees the froghopper falling,

sees down deep in the shadows

of dock leaves and captures it all

in the jubilance of a sonata.

He sees me here, sitting listening,

derisively scrambles my rhyming,

mocks my metre with whistling 

and stutters his uttermost frights -

a hedgehog sacking the nest,

the dread of a sparrowhawk strike.

A rousing theme repeats

in this music of chaos and strife -

one phrase bubbling with zest,

projecting success and defeat,

the sadness of loss and love,

the balance of death and life.