you can stand by the Marloes Beacon trig point
watching the sunset while hearing nearly every sound in the village.
28th November 2020
Late Autumn, up at the Beacon evening end,
Listening to the village putting itself to bed
Under this moon-paled duvet
Of stilled mild midweight overcast.
A chainsaw, at last, garps to a stop:
In that echoing misty quiet,
Surely the loud-sighed relief of many.
Clatterslatter, of tall aluminium ladder unextending.
Clumpy whomps: the slamming of four-by-four doors
Almost the size of lock gates;
And, yes, there’s the “Squilk, Squick!” of the fob’s double security.
Nature sounds, too; and our ears eager for them:
The last passing crow’s dew-muted farewell bark;
The final stickletwitters of roosting finches
As they sink to a bristletop blackthorn, disappear parchedgrass-snug within.
Unexplained, a boomy blonk from one of the freighters anchored in the bay:
A chain just chocked, or perhaps a lubricant barrel re-stowed
After slaking the engine sump’s thousand-mile thirst?
Blackbirds, suddenly all pilting and chicketing
Conifer to sycamore and back to conifer,
In such competitive twilight fluster.
Someone’s muddy car…
Pulsing gnarly blarts of a pressure washer,
Eventually snarting to silence when power is cut.
Silent, all the while, as we drift down-lane homewards,
Are the smokepuffs of ridge-crouching chimneys.
Although, in our minds’ ears,
We hear the creak and crackle of setting-to stoves below,
Purr of cat and kettle, intense breaths
Of buttercrumbed kneeling children toasting crumpets
While Grandma snores through the football scores.
© Christopher Jessop 2020
