While Stocks Last

As long as a blackbird
still mounts the podium
of the aspen tree, making
an impassioned plea for song.

As long as blue tits, painted
like endangered tribesmen,
survive in their rain-forest
of soaking larch.

As long as the trilling lasts
above the office car park
and hands tingle to inscribe
in the margins of buff files,

‘The skywriting of a bird
is more permanent than ink’
or ‘The robin’s eagle eye
questions these projections.’

from While Stocks Last

By kind permission of Anvil Press Poetry