Pigeons

They paddle with staccato feet
In powder-pools of sunlight,
Small blue busybodies
Strutting like fat gentlemen
With hands clasped
Under their swallowtail coats;
And, as they stump about,
Their heads like tiny hammers
Tap at imaginary nails
In non-existent walls.


Elusive ghosts of sunshine
Slither down the green gloss
Of their necks in an instant, and are gone.


Summer hangs drugged from sky to earth
In limpid fathoms of silence:
Only warm dark dimples of sound
Slide like slow bubbles
From the contented throats.


Raise a casual hand -
With one quick gust
They fountain into air.

Richard Kell