The Song Of Number Three



I can hear my neighbours. I can hear radio tunes and a harmony of conversation. This morning one car has driven past, two tractors trundle between yard and field. Most amusing so far is the singing toilet: the cistern celebrates each refilling with a low twisting refrain. It has some kind of pipe hernia. Loudest are the birds. Multitudinous notes reverberate, make an outdoor opera of nesting rites. Silent in the blue sky vast clouds bask. Four horses at pasture blow through their noses, make Jurassic Park noises. A branch on the fat trunked ash plucks at our telephone wire. The house at Lawhitton bounces with these pleasant sounds. Lamentations for the old place are eased. We start to speak of the new dwelling now not by village name but by its name, Number Three.  


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