Dusk

There is just the faintest tinge of blue in the grey evening sky. The drizzle is so faint that I have to wait for a few more miniscule stabs of coolness on my skin before I’m sure it’s real. The movements of the black and white cat in my neighbour’s garden are so slow and deliberate that it’s tempting to think it too is under the spell of this crepuscular timidity.

But there’s nothing faint about the bee eaters. Though their trills are not loud, they have a bell-like clarity. Flying in purposeful squadrons, they flit back and forth across the sky in their untiring search for insects. And now the rain drops have become a little bigger and make a soft sound on the leaves…

dusk
an early cricket
announces itself