I don’t look up much, no, not anymore,

No reason, really, to a wide empty sky,

Oh, what was it like? You’re right well to ask,

But where are the words, it’s right hard to describe,

Emptiness now, where once was plenitude of life-

But now-

Yes, the clouds are fair, or threatening, still,

Dark hovering one day, delighting the next,

Throwing daggers of light with cannonic sound,

Or arches of colour, like a child fairy’s dream,

But the swirling flocks that once danced above,

It’s been some years now since I saw the like,

And this year and last, in autumn and spring,

Search as I might, none flew south, and none north again,

Yet, in my time, they covered the heavens, for many a day,

But the insects have gone, the fields and the trees,

So they have too.  And the bats? 

Oh, they stopped coming two year ago.

No, I don’t look up much, no, not anymore,

There’s little to see, and I don’t like to cry.