Counting Birds

He sits in a chair, in front of a window,
Watching how nature before him unfolds
Her wonders in devoted silence.
In the trees and the bushes in the garden
He watches them, as they sit and sing: the birds,
Their numbers dwindling each year as he counts.


Two pigeons, ten sparrows and one lark he counts;
His wrinkles reflected in the dirty window.
He knows all the names and the sounds of the birds.
Their colours grow faint as the day unfolds.
As twilight reaches the back of the garden,
The songs that were heard turn to silence.


A woman approaches him in that silence,
His lips still shape the numbers he counts.
Her face is mapped out like an old garden.
Her eyes are the doors, two old, glazed windows,
Smiling serenely as she unfolds
A napkin, filled with biscuits shaped like his birds.


“How was your day, how were the birds?”
His reply is unheard, and there is silence.
With trembling hands the old man unfolds
A shoddy, crumbled paper, marked with counts
Of the wondrous sights once seen from the window,
Or from the bench in front of the shed in the garden.


He knows he has seen her in a green garden.
In the past she had been feeding the birds,
And he had stared at her through the window,
Watching her lovely figure move in silence,
Dancing to the beats and the upturned counts
As a pleat in her dress sensually unfolds.


A tear in his eye appears as he unfolds
His hands, and points at the garden.
She holds her fingers on his wrist, and counts.
Why does she tally if there are no birds,
He tries to ask, but there is only silence
As he looks at the nameless woman’s reflection through the window.


A new scene unfolds, filled with beautiful birds.
The counts have seized, there is only silence.
Her husband enters the eternal garden through an invisible window.

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