Still Life

It’s past noontime and birds
speak a welter of whistle
warble honk and tweet.
Robins chirp mellifluous,
jays shrill and shriek,
crows jeer, squawking
at the shallow fields.

There are no human voices
only birds and echoes
on the wind, unclear echoes
dispossessed of breath and skin,
carried in the breeze, echoes
of some remove.

The trees are spare of leaves,
traffic a distant hushing past

though two wheels turning
in the lane crack loud
like breaking rock
and gravel patters jaggedly
as scattered bone.
The birds retreat then stop,
their small heads cocked.
Dust almost settles.

The stones repose in intermittent
rows unkempt and leaning slightly
down as if impatient with
the ground and this vast
matinee of sky.