Poems

The Silence of  Sparrows

Outside
A string of sparrows
dot the landscape with black notes
quavering the wind-tensed wire.
The ground is desecrated by fallow decay.
Whistling an undercover tune, the wind sneaks
through empty barns,
plays with door hinges and broken windows
and whips up whirligigs in fields.

Inside
a photograph paints
a picture of a well-thumbed past beneath
the dead woman’s head: a young farmer
in khaki stands to attention
in the 1st world war, next to his pregnant wife
with the light-brown hair.
After seasons of work and love, alone,
she waits for the future to find her.

Outside
the twins laugh
as they fork hay into brown hair
burnished by the sun of ’36.
Their mother watches their harvest mature
the fields with fertile growth and the sound
of sparrows singing.
But the bitter scent of war flavours
An autumn attack on the land.

Eventide
comes too soon:
a plane is framed in a field by fire;
a  world explodes with sound effects
as Hitler marches through countries
conquering his fear of failure.
Her sons are killed.
And the fertile woman with the light-brown hair
is sterilized by the silence of sparrows.

© 1996
Finalist in Hastings Poetry Competition
[Written as Linda Collins]