Jeremy Leach

Bird\'s eye view

With a bird’s eye view I’d pity all the poor wingless creatures playing out their lives down on the ground

As I flew free and high over trees, hills and valleys, sprawling patchwork fields and busy towns

 

I’d stretch my wings on summer thermals, soaring over vast expanses of harvested golden wheat below

Ascending up and up more, to the billowing cloud base, way above the tiny tractors, combine, and silly squabbling crows

 

I’d land to gruesome sights of worms pulled and stretched, and impaling and cracking some hapless snails open

But knowing it’s just natures fate, the circle of life, and the way it’s always been for the timeless wheel of survival unspoken

 

One evening as the blue-to-purple hues gently fall, I’d sit quizzically on the old lichen-covered farmer\'s gate

And sing the sweetest song I’ve somehow always known, through the calming romantic hush of dusk to find a mate

 

And one spring morn on the swaying nest, we\'d look with pride at our clutch of blue speckled eggs laid high in our oak

And spy the cold front of fast changing skies, grey bellied clouds, bracing for a night when squally winds would blow and the rain would soak

 

On a busy afternoon with wiggling bright-green caterpillars stuffed in my beak, I\'d flit the endless to and fro to our brood

With chirping, pushing and impatient mouths all wide open, I\'d be the responsible lifeline, the tireless relentless provider of food

 

One morning our brood would shakily take first flight , with me nervously watching them flap and plunge to the neatly cut lawn

Judging the fat lazy cat was still tucked up, sleeping in the house, we’d keep the noise down in the breaking skies of the early dawn

 

Blinding flashes of lightening would stun the sultry humid summer nights,  with crashing raging thunder and threatening menacing skies

Our family would lurch in the fierce gusty gales, rain and hurting hail, buffeting our senses and filling wonder in our fearful eyes

 

 Peering over the glistening misty pillow of early autumn,  to graceful deer bravely emerging from the bracken shadows, alert but calm

Hearing the cows\' low mooing and chewing, making their slow laden way through dew-soaked grass, to the milking shed down at the farm

 

Beholding the spider\'s sparkling display of bejewelled webs as the sun peaks it’s head over the golden-leaved hilltops

Feasting with speckled woods on the sticky blackberry harvest. Clusters of juicy, inky delight and savouring every drop

 

On a winter\'s night I\'d watch the eternal, jewelled constellation of Orion steadily turn in the frosty soot-black sky through branches overhead

Then pushing my way deep into a safe hawthorn bush, with low chirps to neighbours, I\'d know it’s now time to go to my bed

 

On that final last cold night, I\'d look back on everything I\'d ever done, and everything I knew

All the adventures, visions, colours, beauty and lessons of my life. And feel so lucky that I\'d been gifted the perspective of a bird’s eye view