First south and west, then north and east, I quarter up the sky.
I’m watching for your sickle wings to scythe across my eye.
I look, I look, then look again and listen for your scream.
But bar the clap of pigeon wings there’s nothing to be seen.
The mewl of buzzards overhead, spirals on upward air.
An aerial feat, though quite a treat, no answer to my prayers.
And still they go unanswered though the grass is growing long.
And the swallows and the martins have joined the heavenly throng.
I love their eaves-slung mudhuts and their lineups on the wire.
But you dear swift, my absent friend, you set my heart on fire.
So I look and look again for gracious airborne crescents.
Vesper flights in evening light please grace us with your presence.
And then you’re here and I thank god for sending you to me
Although I never crooked my neck the vicar’d church to see.
You are my priest of summertime. Your pulpit is the skies.
And when you leave and head back home a bit inside me dies.
The cock cranks north, the wind is cold, your ministry I need.
My neck cranes south beyond the spire I’m wishing you Godspeed.
The modest spire of St Peter’s Church, Coreley, across the orchard from our Shropshire home inspires many of my equally modest scribbles. This poem was written for when the weathervane swings back to the south and heralds the return of one of my favourite birds.