…yesterday on the radio, the 6.00 am news.A representative of the home carers association (I didn’t catch her name) was being interviewed about the shortage of PPE for her members. Unless new supplies were located in short order, she said, home carers might be forced to close their books just when the home-bound most needed care.

The interview was conducted by phone and she must have stepped outside or opened a window because, even though she spoke clearly and the line was clear, her voice was often lost in the riot of birds in the background. Thrushes, robins warblers, blackbirds, skylarks, every chirper for miles around had joined the full-throated chorale.

It was how the world might sound on a Spring morning without us.

Winter clears away
the summer — piles of flies
& ne’er a twitch.

Image: Detail from Guide to the Gallery of Birds in the Department of Zoology of the British museum of Natural History c/- Wikimedia. PPE is Personal Protective Equipment.

Thanks for reading.

9 April 2020.

And here’s ten minutes of exquisite beauty,  William Byrd’s double motet ‘Ne Irascaris Domine’ and ‘Civitas Sancti Tui’. Turn it up.