I slip slide my way to the garden

I slip slide my way to the garden

        ice on the deck between us
sitting by the unseasonable onions
clinging to their underground life
        and the house ravens flop
hoping for some kitchen salvage

        Every day has its glory

My coffee    hanging breath in air
a spinebill on the toe of my boot
        its head tucked
in furtive nodding reconciliation

the blue tongue apprentice puffs
        a butcher bird sings a cruel elegy
notes from a throatful of memory
        where all beauty lies in antithesis

I’m unfathomably teary here
in the privilege of living long
and I think of that rueful silence
of children stopping play to listen

turning to face the noiseless future
before missiles deliver the fiery past