The baker's wife
is neither surprised nor impressed
when he brings her cakes and pastries.
The child of a joiner
can take or leave a treehouse.

But since I am not a poet,
I hope you can take these inelegant lines,
their lack of rhyme or rhythm
and their false humility
and read this in them:

After all this time
you still make me think and see
in new and unusual ways
and for that, and all else besides,
I thank you.

It came from small beginnings.
A shaken woman left her car, engine still running
To see whether or not she had killed the rabbit.
Soft and broken it lay, and she wept, when suddenly
The rabbit drew its final breath
And spoke.
"Don't worry," it said.
"You humans, you're too sentimental!
"You should know, we admire you so much
"That it is a great honour to die at your hands
"Or through the speed of your magnificent machines!"

The woman was startled.

The phenomenon spread around the globe.
In the middle of the South China Sea
A fisherman was greeted by a cheer from his catch.
"Well done!  Well done!" they cried.
"Next time use a smaller mesh, you'll catch more!"

In a chicken battery in Idaho, a young labourer
Whose conscience was troubling him
Almost fainted when 60,000 chickens sang
"For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!" and thanked him for his kindness.

"We are here for you!" said a turtle, choking on a plastic bag.
"You have dominion - use it with pride!" cried a pack-laden donkey.
"We are nothing without your interest - catch us, keep us, eat us, please!"

Tabloids were quick to react.
"One in the eye for the Animal Liberationists,"
said the Daily Mail.

For 24 hours the animals spoke
and then they stopped.
And because their voices
had been strained and strange,
feather muffled and furred,
wrung from throats with no vocal chords
It was impossible to be sure
Whether or not
they were being sarcastic.

By the night-light's orange glow
I hold you,
Long after you have settled
Jealous of the years which wait
to take you from my arms
To schools and shorelines,
to woods,
to streets,
to parties, parks and pubs
While here and now, all you need
is my heartbeat
in your ear.

On the face of it, there isn't much about this bird
To stop me in my tracks.
             Brown, oblivious, busy with the ground
It totters along on stilted legs
Probing among the frozen fields.

It's the name that's the trouble.

Childhood hours spent copying pictures
From the Readers' Digest Book of Birds
Call to mind the name, 'Curlew'.
In my house, though, birds had Scots names
and my dad, a linguistic David Bellamy
Urged us to conserve these rare words
or lose them forever.
Goldfinch?  Gowdspink!
Starling?  Stuckie!
Blue ***?  Umm...

But the undistinguished gentleman before me
was definitely a whaup.

Curlew or whaup?
Which is it to me?
The English of books
or the fading Scots, maybe closer
to the bird's wild home?

Textbook reality
or romantic poetry?
Or both - can the creature sit
in two states at once?
"Schrodinger's Curlew", I think with a smile.
("Schrodinger's Whaup!" bellows the bit of my dad
that lodges in my head.)

           Here, under a cloud of my own breath
In the low winter light,
            Neither seems quite adequate.

And then, untouched by my musings
The bird spreads its wings and lifts,
Naming itself, with a long, pure note

          And my heart, in two states,
           Leaps
             and breaks.

Don't be scared, little thought!
I saw you, keeking out from behind some triviality
Reluctant to disturb me
(you could see I was tired), but please,
don't go, don't go!
I think we've met before?  Some years ago
When I was less careless with my time
And slower to retreat along well trodden paths.
I'm afraid I'm not the host I was,
but wait - at least remind me of your name?

Are you a vanished love,
Neither finished nor fulfilled?
Are you the speechless schoolboy view
From the summit of Ben Alder, won
By twenty miles of peat bog and scree?
(No wonder you feel a stranger here
In front of my T.V!)
Are you a question to which comfort was not the answer?
Oh please wait, I nearly have it!
You're a song, begun but forgotten?
You're something I meant to say to someone, once
You're a friend, a parent - a reason
For loving this great wide world

Don't go - don't leave me here
with Simon Cowell, cheap wine
And no momentum!