Day: April 16, 2019

muffle-toed in holy Mary's churchyard
a nine nest rookery rocks queasily
topping off the bare brazen beech
congregants wend the wayward path below
to the great carved door, bowed by wet west winds
or a North-easterly that comes gusting round
medieval mildewed stones
biting through to all the human bones

the grave-groping root-grubbing builders
have done with twig and twine revivals
cacophonous grumblings of whose is what
and what is where, dark-vowelled now
still as sylphs, the pair-bonds stand sentinel
or sit before the births, bloody gash of gaping mouths
plundering down to a white-faced hunger 
for worms and fledgling flesh 

lark-high in the belfry's humming hymnal
the baked-earth chimney stacks, Jack black daws bicker
and twitter in fast flowing flights of fancy
on an adjacent thorn, a crow couple, flint-eyed and steely  
strop their beaks to a clean, fine edge
dusk settles hush-hush on sloe-eyed April
and two bell-voiced birds ascend to evensong
in one long dust-tongued
decaying
duet

For further reading, here are the poetry sources for the title of this poem & six of Thomas’ word-compounds that I used:
a world of wings & cries ~ Being but Men
muffle-toed ~ After the funeral
grave-groping ~ The seed at zero
dark-vowelled ~ Especially when the October wind
lark-high ~ Into her lying down head
bell-voiced ~ Altar-wise by owl-light
dust-tongued ~ It is the sinner’s dust-tongued bell