Kingfisher

I had heard him before seeing him
along the narrow chalk stream,
that disturbed and distinctive cry
that rippled through to my spine.  In fact
there wasn’t much to see,
just a flash of electric blue,
a tiny bird made larger by its brightness, but still
gone too quickly for those walking with me to see.

We were walking quiet paths in search of a pub lunch,
on an early summer’s day of dappled sunshine
and vivid greens, of dustings of lady’s lace along the hedgerows
and, as we rounded one shaded corner,
a cascade of long-tailed tits flitting through the alders.

And it had already been, I think,
my happiest day of the year - and yet I’d have traded all the rest,
every bit of it,
for that one single flash of blue fire.