This Loafer

In a sun-crazed orchard

Busy with blossomings

This loafer, unaware of

What toil or weather brings,

Lumpish sleeps – a chrysalis

Waiting, no doubt, for wings.

And when he does get active,

It’s not for business – no

Bee-lines to thyme or heather,

No earnest to-and-fro

Of thrushes: pure caprice tells him

Where and how to go.

All he can ever do

Is to be entrancing,

So that a child may think,

Upon a chalk-blue chancing,

‘Today was special. I met

A piece of the sky dancing.’