A Chiffchaff Sings by Martin Maudsley

A Chiffchaff sings insistently from the greening trees,

Repeating a two-tone tune, declaiming a clarion call:

Wake-up, wake-up, wake-up!

My ears are electrified, and my heart is pumping faster.

Time to spring.

I’m grateful for the alarm call, but I wasn’t sleeping –

Just pretending, to be dead.

The winter was darker and colder than I expected, or wanted.

Becoming lifeless became my way to stay alive,

The price I was asked to pay.

Yet there were precious compensations:

Hushed fireside friendships, wild walks alone beside the sea.

And those occasional texts you kept sending me, just checking in.

Thank-you. Yes, I’m still here.

And those times playing darts with my son,

Never hitting a double, but never missing a single opportunity

To be – or not to be elsewhere.

Then that treasured evening, with my daughter,

When we picked up a book and read poetry together,

Prolonging bedtime for a long time, one poem leading to another,

Taking turns to give voice to the words, releasing them,

Like Racing Pigeons, to fly from the page.

Thank-you.

Before the Chiffchaff began to sing from his spring-board, amongst the trees

Pale Primroses made early promises, in delicate petals.

Once, I planted a few of them by our front door, for the Fair Folk.

They were gathered from forbidden woods, beyond the barbed wire,

Where Deer hoof and Badger claw had dislodged a few plants,

Which I tenderly replaced on home ground.

They’ve grown well, there. Thank-you.

Today I cycled in soft spring rain, grateful

For both the journey and the destination – a safe haven of books.

The sentinel Holly Tree at the gentle bend in the road,

Which a few month-moments ago, was coruscating with bright berries,

Is now almost lost amongst leafy Hazel boughs;

An evergreen overwhelmed by the newly-green.

In that same spot, on a fine frosty day in December,

I remember a white Hart, right in the middle of the road:

Standing still and staring, eye-to-eye, species to species.

And later you told me of the Winter Solstice Stag, who holds the sun in his antlers,

Effortlessly, endlessly carrying the procession of the seasons.

Thank-you for telling me your story.

I could tell that it wasn’t easy to tell, but it made it easier for me

To step onto that bridge of words and wounds,

Where we held and beheld each other,

Without flinching from referred pain, for a moment,

I heard you. Thank-you.

The Plum Tree is covered with clouds of blousy blossom,

Even after – or maybe because of – the hard pruning late last summer.

The branches are abuzz with what I thought were Honey Bees,

But when I peer into one of those ivory flowers, they turn out to be Hoverflies.

A simple observable fact makes me inexplicably happy. Thank-you.

I remember last autumn helping our next-door neighbour, in his nineties,

Picking purple plums from the crooked tree besides the chain-link fence.

My daughter climbed a ladder to reach the highest hanging fruit,

And I thought to myself:

He has seen nearly a century of seasons –

Fresh flowers, leathery leaves, ripe fruit.

And she: has only a handful.

I don’t care to count how many passing plums I’ve seen.

But I’m grateful that each one has counted.

Thank-you. Every one of you.

Thank-you, Blackthorn and Blackcap,

Whose fluty, flaunting melody makes me bubble inside.

Thank-you Stitchwort and Stinging Nettle.

Thank-you Celandine, star-shaped and sunshine yellow,

Whose Greek name means Swallow,

Who also arrive now with spring-shine on their wings,

A synonymy and synchrony of Celandine and Hirundine.

Thank-you Green Alkanet, blue eyes peering through the Green Mist.

Thank-you Herb Robert, whoever Christened you,

And Red Campion so obviously pink, but named before there was a name for pink.

And now, May, I thank-you,

For Bluebell, whose colour is indefinable, ineffable and unmissable.

I dreamed its pungent perfume once, lying beneath beechwood leaves,

Amongst unfurling ferns, on St George’s Day.

Thank-you Sweet Violet whose scent can only be smelt once,

Then not again. A honeyed moment in memory.

Thank-you Speedwell and Traveller’s Joy.

For I too must travel, backwards and forwards,

In straight lines and concentric circles.

Thank-you, Hawthorn, who has always stayed near me,

Returning cycles of seasons, along a linear life,

A double helix of Me and Tree twisted together:

Winter’s treacherous thorns, softened by spring leaves,

Then adorned with pillows of blossom;

Inwardly holding a day-dream of autumn’s red-lit haws.

I remember as a boy that strange, secret time

When I shuffled off my clothes and danced around a flourishing May Tree.

It made me inexplicably happy at the time. And still does.

And I still tell the story of my grandfather,

Standing and staring at his Hawthorn tree in Maytime,

When that wasn’t the done thing for farmers to do back then.

But now, this May, I may

Behold the blossom with pure impunity,

Relishing the new, releasing the old,

Refreshing the soul.

Thank-you. Thank-you. Thank-you.

***

Martin Maudsley is a storyteller and writer living in Dorset, specialising in stories of the natural world and local landscapes. He is the author of Telling the Seasons, a storied journey through the twelve months of the year drawing on the changing patterns of nature and the rich tapestry of folklore from the British Isles. His essay ‘Lost In Time’ is included in Going to Ground. Martin can often be found happily celebrating the seasons in his home patch, from firelit winter wassails to dewy MayDay mornings.