Bird Song

Harry slumped down in his garden wicker chair

For a well-deserved rest after toiling in his garden all morning

He looked around to admire his work

The lawn stripes, neatly trimmed hedges and weeded flower beds

It was a warm, still Sunday, Summer’s afternoon

Harry decided to continue reading his book

Which he had started only yesterday

It was Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves

It described the horrors of trench warfare in The Great War

The extreme hardships suffered by the troops on both sides

No Man’s land, lethal gas, barbed wire and the deadly Maxim gun

Mutilated and bloated bodies and rat-infested trenches

It re-emphasised the futility of war and the intolerable hardships of the soldiers

Harry was glad that he was of a different generation that had not

Been called up to fight for his country

He found Grave’s recollections both disturbing and depressing

And so, he put down the book to reflect on what he had been reading

He contrasted the beauty of his garden

With the shell holes, burnt out trees and pounded villages of France

The tranquillity   of the day was punctured only by the local sounds

The shrieks of excited children playing in the next-door garden

The sound of a distant power tool and the occasional

Dog’s bark and aircraft flying overhead

But there was no bird song which Harry remembered from the past

Where had all the song birds gone?

The Blackbirds, Thrushes and Chaffinches

Their habitat destroyed maybe by over development

Insecticides, paved front gardens and artificial grass

Here was a singular sad parallel with the horrors of The Great War

When there was no bird song either