🇬🇧 The Blackbird’s (half) mid-morning nap

🇬🇧 The Blackbird’s (half) mid-morning nap

688.    He’s settled in a sycamore
        A quiet mid-morning
        Hidden by the leaves.
        I think he’s dozing.
        The body is still,
        The head sinks down,
        The neck withdrawn into the body.
        The eyelids close up,
        (It's’ a bird!).

689.    The blackbird sleeps,
        Or dozes, or something else,
        At least on one side,
        Just like the swifts,
        It is believed.
        Maybe the other side is awake,
        But I don’t think I’ll ever see it.

670.    If nothing else, I see
        Half a bird asleep.
        The body is at rest.
        The tip of the beak is lowered.
        Dreams in one half of the brain,
        Visuals in realtime in the other?
        Can he close down hemispeherically?

671.    After a few minutes
        He raises up his head,
        Opens his beak.
        The body still calm,
        Legs pulled up under him.
        He is waking, half or whole.

672.    He scouts about
        As all birds:
        Head and neck in jerks;
        Quarter or half turns,
        First to one side,
        Then to the other side.
        Repeated, watchful.
        A minute or two.
        The eye with its yellow ring;
        The regard stiff, black.
        Here, all is silent.

673.    Branch and leaves flap,
        He’s gone.
        He wanted time
        For himself.
        A quiet moment
        In the rush of the day.
        I have spied on him.