AUGUST

I've been
dying to tell you
on my way to work

I saw six to eight parakeets
more or less a flock
quarrelling in the treetops

in the small park
I take a shortcut through
until two of them

broke away
to another band of trees
which seemed to resolve matters

they're incomers of course
originally released
from cages west of here

by accident or design
and tough on the nearly
extinct local variety

but with their colours and squawk
and pouty walk along branches
also beautiful

THE RESCUE

twice this autumn
I've had to rescue
from the bewildering
white concave of our bath
a large brown bush spider
apparently strayed
from the karo hedge outside
and fallen in off the sill

when I try to swing her
back out the window
she drops in a controlled
abseil from the end of the ruler
I've scooped her up on
her silk as thick
as a string of smoke above her
her wide legs milling

such is the silent power
in her shape
star burst or windscreen shatter
dark bindweed thicket
midnight hair in a storm
it occurs to me
to question each time
which of us has been rescued

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