Christmas Congregation

Four o’clock, and four calls through the afternoon air
bring the flock to their old parish church,
the Grand Oak, standing still, her limbs twisted and bare,
yet she offers a comfortable perch.

There they sit, in a cluster upon the oak’s crown,
to be close to the sun as it sets,
clad in gold, pink and purple, and red, drifting down
over hills and fields, lakes, riverlets.

And they sing to the sky in a mixture of tones,
a fine trill, a sweet tweet, a calm coo;
echoes cover the earth and the rocks and the stones
until night nears in star-swept black-blue.

Then they rise, spread their robes, and launch homeward again,
to sleep soundly from twilight to dawn,
when the sun starts to shine over ocean and fen
and their church on the dew-dazzled lawn.