Endless August afternoon.
Vegetation yellows.
Seed heads
sizzle and pop.
Their beaks
open wide,
distressed,
beside themselves,
the small birds
are overheating.
Only the kite,
tirelessly circling
above the exhausted
earth, endlessly
adjusting the angle
of its forked tail,
appears unaffected.
Then a breeze arrives like a blessing
and in the tiny pools spangling the river bed
the pond skaters ride the ripples
while the dragonflies, momentarily spooked,
rise and stand off a while
until the rushes come to rest once more.
Up above, the leaves of the poplar
tremble, sparkle and click.
Down below, the dozy dogs
prick up their ears.
And out on the stubble,
the never-knowingly-not-nibbling sheep
raise their heads
in slack-jawed, dumb surprise.
Glenn Hubbard has been writing since 2013 and lives at the foot of the Sierra de Guadarrama near Madrid. He has written a good deal of nature poetry over the years, inspired by the flora and fauna of both Spain and the UK. Some of this work has been published in journals such as Words for the Wild, the Dawntreader and Sarasvati.
Foxglove Journal 