Regard (Luminade)

Regard the companionable robin,

Fledgling, breast unblushing,

How he hops and flits,

Such tiny heart throbbing.

See what prolific Nature brings:

For each our tender mornings,

Mystery in all things.

Regard the energetic squirrel,

Red as dawn and dusk, our day

To welcome, and imperil.

He leaps, pirouettes, his accustomed way

Summer branches twitching

Half-hidden, deftly foraging

Cobnuts sweetly beckoning.

Regard the dormouse, squatter-host,

Whose idyllic country cottage this is

(Carpetbaggers, we: interlopers, lost).

From over-mantle perch he watches,

As we, he and his, also are watching,

Two families coyly cohabiting;

Animo and anthropo, morphizing.

Regard the delicate, diffident bat,

Skulking ever behind wonky shutter,

Piercing daylight to shun, and bolt,

Till dusk unlock such nightly clamour.

Above our heads he low is swooping,

Spirits soaring, he blind weaving,

Skies star-pricked, all-hallowing.

Regard, in Autumn, the pretty robin

(Red-breasted now, new-caparisoned).

Returning exiles drink such balm in,

As all in all, in garden bowered.

Gentle envoy, we do you entreat

So to honour us, wildling sweet.

Yet stay! Primp and preen at our feet!