Brimstone

by Nicola Warwick

Light throws a kaleidoscope on my blank page. 
I pick out yellow and a ghost of grey
– but yellow-
in loose diamond shapes
like the wings of a butterfly pinned open.

A buttery, not quite sulphur yellow, escorting
an ensemble of sounds, bass notes
of traffic, melody
held by robin, wren, song-thrush, 
overlaid with the calls of panicked geese.

More yellow than the labrador that smiles
at me the way dogs know how to do.
Less yellow than
the flare of the blackbird’s
beak as he frisks the ivy for a nest site.

This scatter of light on a page, this
memory of sounds, an ignition
of spring
and somewhere, behind me
a woodpecker laughs.

Copyright © 2020 Nicola Warwick