It feels like a Sunday,
Or rather like old Sundays used to be.
As I walk out on this bright, breezy mad March morning,
A kind of hush has descended on my world, bringing behind it an unkind peace,
For underneath there is a kind of a war on.
I hear the early chorus of oblivious birds, busy, building, singing,
And the gentle buzzing of the humble bumble bee.
Across the fields I hear the voice of a neighbour’s child at play,
No clamour of the kids’ playground, no school bell clanging or distant church bell ringing.
My cattle do not realise of course, for them it’s just another day,
As they bellow out to me, impatiently waiting for their daily ration of hay.
The chickens scratch around, some squawk loudly, almost proudly,
In their own inimitable way to let the valley know they’re laying an egg.
In the distance a dog barks and there’s the drone of a lawn mower,
Someone is cutting their grass. It feels like a Sunday.
I start up the tractor, shattering the scene and off to work we go.
My ear muffs muffle the rattling, clattering, chattering of the chain harrows,
Dragged doggedly behind the chuntering tractor.
Round and round and up and down and round and round again,
These fields will be bursting, burgeoning with life and colour in the coming summer.
But for now spring irrepressible is tantalising us with hazel catkins, pussy willows
And snow-like blackthorn blossom.
Pretty pale primroses, egg-yolk yellow celandines and dandelions
Brighten the bottoms of the awakening hedgerows. I drink it all in.
Locked away in my solitary world.
Hours pass, then driving back down the lane
Daffodils I planted twenty years ago dance in the evening breeze,
Dazzling in the last dying rays of the setting sun.
Time for tea and fireside sitting.
I switch off the tractor and the din is done.
Back where I started and plodding homeward,
I am bathed in birdsong and the bumble bee’s hum,
As they faithfully chant the long day’s epitaph.
Suddenly I am back fifty years,
I can almost smell my father’s pipe
And hear my mother laugh.
