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No Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs Dover

Stuart Butler

Wednesday, May 28th, 2003

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 When you listen to nightingales in a copse,
Staring at a Constable cloudscape flying high above,
That glows with all the mythology of an English sunset,
While the church tower slips down into an evening mist,
And when you walk down the tow path in May,
With the sunlight playing on the water,
Just like the cygnet cupped in the wings on his mother’s back,
Then what with the Severn and what with the swans
And what with a canal pub half mast union flag
Reflected in the waters below,
Your mind is bound to think of football,
And Cardiff City versus Queens Park Rangers,
And the absence of the national anthem.
And your mind is bound to wonder
How that will be seen in retrospect,
Is it another stepping stone towards the break up of Great Britain,
As the tidal river cuts a swathe through the misty myths
Of cultured southern England and of Celtic Wales;
For as some anonymous medieval Welsh monk commented,
When diverted by the world and all its temporal marginalia,
“In the water’s canvas, bright sunshine paints the portrait of the day.”

© Stuart Butler

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/no-bluebirds-over-the-white-cliffs-dover/