Put To Flight (Poetry)

There, in a pastel gap between September trees
with purple cloud a framework pressing dim
a grey-spun cool horizon flaunts far mysteries
and silence hangs its peace-evoking hymn.

Unlit, this watercolour lacks the artful slant
of autumn rays to warm the atmosphere
since rain has come and gone — the summer’s fickle cant
at odds as though its focus isn’t clear.

Then comes a change — a sudden drama some way off
erupts and birds come bursting through the break
they wheel around in strict formation — stream aloft
dark arrows trailing panic in their wake.

I am too far away to hear their shrill complaint
or guess the cause that’s put them all to flight
I just observe their aerobatics growing faint
until the miles defeat my failing sight.

Why do I feel a strange perplexing sense of loss
come rolling like a wave to hit my shore
as though I’m left alone to calculate some cost
I’ve no intrinsic scale of values for?

The birds (if birds they were — not feathered fancies blown)
like refugees go seeking safer land
while I unravel what I think I’ve always known
yet somehow failed to fully understand.