Goldcrest
From the gnarly spruce, each bough
thick with needles of pastel green,
heavy with woody cones
A tiny tinny sound
In this Sussex churchyard.
Careful
we tip-toe
so not to disturb them above our heads
Or those sleeping
below.
Necks craned we glimpse
hops and flits of tiny shadows.
A second to press,
and catch the image.
To spot the yellow stripe on a small brown head
As the goldcrest serenades the dead.
october 2020