ODE TO THE CHIMNEY STACK

It’s always there when I look out of my study window

And sometimes I can see it: a chimney stack on the

Gable end of the house across the road, a brick cube

Built over its apex, the broad side facing me, valued

By rooks, jackdaws, hoodie crows and pigeons, for standing

Meditatively above the houses, from where all can

Be surveyed, the social group, its food, its nests, its

Hierarchies, its enemies. The nestling that flits

Incompetently from tree to tree, needs encouragement

And will receive it from an older brother or sister sent

By the senior bird on the chimney who other times just

Dozes in the sun. From here the world may be structured

And enjoyed, the future planned, for these birds are long-

– Lived and think in generations. Their rational songs

And sensible activities comfort a mind grieved by folly

My own and others’- to recover balance and call me

To composure. But what is this? The sun has set

While I’ve been watching, and the chimney is a silhouette

Against a pale twilight that dims and dims until a crow

Swoops black ahead of blackness in descent

Upon it, wings outspread, until it is no longer present.