CLERIC-NATURALIST Andrew Young anticipates the imperative call of the nesting season in this piece from his Selected Poems (Carcanet, £9.95).
THE STOCKDOVES
They rose up in a twinkling cloud
And wheeled about and bowed
To settle on the trees
Perching like small clay images.
Then with a noise of sudden rain
They clattered off again
And over Ballard Down
They circled like a flying town.
Though one could sooner blast a rock
Than scatter that dense flock
That through the winter weather
Some iron rule has held together,
Yet in another month from now
Love like a spark will blow
Those birds the country over
To drop in trees, lover by lover.
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