Daye 10 / What Did You Expect To Find?

listen
crows are circling overhead
there’s an aircraft humming
far overhead
glistening
and I’m listening
to the buzzing of insects
when the sudden
green shimmer
of a blade of grass
causes me to remember
and I travel forward
twenty years

to the sun beating down
on the back of my neck
a watch is ticking against my ear
the hour has not yet arrived
but later that afternoon
we’ll take a last ride
through the sun-glow
sliver of moon meadows of flowery fields
and underneath your great shadowy hat
when I can no longer
see your eyes
the forecast begins

you’ll open the book on your knee
to read out a random line
but the glare of the pine forest
and the warm summer air
make you feel like there’s nothing to say

***

was in the studio
all last week
analysing the
peculiar birdsong
that we caught on tape
last year
when lucy and I
made a flying visit to
the country of lights
what we expected to find
I cannot tell you
but lucy made an
unexpected discovery
regarding the songs

after travelling
back to the capital city
a month ago
to make further recordings
of the birds
whilst they were in their natural habitat
lucy discovered
that they are intelligent
and have a natural language
with a hierarchical grammar
it appears that the birdsong
is not just song
but is song and narrative
with the help of some friendly natives
and her little black box
she managed to
translate some of it into english

since returning home
lucy has come down
with a dose of lightflu
a strange and moderately virulent
form of influenza
which seems to
have been activated
by the overwhelming
amount of sunlight
that floods that place
during daylight hours

back here in albion
the behaviour
of the lightflu virus
is in stark contrast
to all previous strains
of earthly influenza
and as no one knows yet
whether the virus
can be easily
transmitted or not
lucy has been in isolation

I have been working
on my own
feverishly trying to peice together
the song fragments
that lucy has translated
unfortunately
some of our original recordings
both those on tape
and digital media
have been partly erased
due to the high level of magnetic
interference from those same twin suns
that have caused lucy’s dose of lightflu

the translation seems to be
telling the history
of some long lost and
previously unknown civilisation
(many apologies for the missing lines)

“first came the frosts
and a few ruined crops
________________
___
mined all our ore
____ down to the core
________________________
___________
we’re starcrossed
all our knowledge is lost
___ novices
_______ academies
___________________
______________

_________________________
____________________________
________________________
____________
________________
took as we pleased
from the great overseas
and our _______
was some kind of god
now the insiders say
that he must be fey
he must begin to see
or he’s lost

here’s a little ________
gift from the kabbalists
____________________
_____________________________

___ples and domes
___ ten million homes
___________________
a thousand feet ___
____ drove back ____
__________________
_____ like it never
stood here at all”