All morning long,
soft white feathers have floated down,
a pillow shaken from the trees.
A pigeon sits wounded above the pergola,
stunned from aerial attack,
finding its seat among the spikes.
I always regretted those spikes,
taking away their happy place.
This is my morning meditation,
reading poetry,
watching the rain fall
from my wooden summer house.
A soft pattering -
barely even that -
pearls of wisdom touching the thirsty green
after long months of summer.
March to September the earth stayed dry,
the air, bath-warm,
Scottish skies tinged with African gold.
My washing lies inert. No point bringing it in.
While I sip from my chalice of good fortune
distant armies are on the move,
robotic wolves are prowling
over man-made borders,
metal toys fly in at a broken window
and find their target.
The sun does not reach us all at the same time.
In other countries horrors unfold,
ripping and tearing at the fabric of human flesh.
But here, all is calm…
until it isn’t.
For some, Eden is here and now
even in a broken world.
Every spoonful of beauty feels like the last,
as I drink it in.
The crow calls, the pigeon rests its broken wing,
and I sip from a broken cup.
All I have left is this.
but ‘This’ is everything.
Alex Nye
Alex Nye is an author of literary, historical, gothic and children’s fiction. Her first novel for younger readers, published by Floris in 2006, won the Royal Mail Award and the Scottish Children’s Book Award. Her most recent titles are Even the Birds Grow Silent and Gallow Falls. She is currently an Advisory Fellow with the Royal Literary Fund.