Hearing a Willow Warbler on Howth Head, April 2020
by Francis Devine

Half baffled by the wind,
there it is, first of the year,
the sallypecker’s trilling song,
flittering somewhere among 
saffron whin, matted tangle 
of bracken, couch and briar.

It is a thrilling, tonal emollient,
soothing lockdown despair,
lifting the spirit, a welcome
renewal, its first-thing-on-arrival
carnal clarion, unintended for us,
but a beautiful misplacement.