Nigel McLoughlin

Chorus

A thousand webs barely contain the green thrum

of the hedge and the night-drop dregs of silver

burst in the mouth; reek like zest. The eye irradiates

with a clamour of birds blackening into horizon.

Colour begins a slow thunder across the sky, multiplies

and changes; sings in bird-throat to the beat of wings.

The air hives with birth, vibrates out of shadow.

Everything burns, everything rings, including me.

The great bell of the world vibrates and I am drunk

with winter-shine. The concrete blazes. The red tang

of seven o’clock and the vein-belt of walking brazen

to the frost leaps through me. An hour before petrol-stink

and the shrink of people diminishing into a rush, here

in the open-throated song of morning, I am in the clear.