Birdsong, after the flood

Reed Bunting

I walk the causeway
that bisects the hollowed bowl
so long a crater
now pitted scar turned wetland.

Before me the cast is now of thousands
Of goldeneye, gadwall, lapwing and grebe
Playing interlinked roles
And excavating damp earth for food the floods failed to wash away

The booms are bitterns.
Drills the wheeze of peewit
Beneath, the low thrum of wings
And rising above, the song of the teal in a minor key

I turn and trace the half-light
Until the antropocene dream
Fades like the sun behind the dragline
That nature reclaimed
For the roosts of owls.