Midnight music

Midnight music

Say not that midnight is the witching hour
as though midwinter midnight boded ill;
graveyards do not yawn here; nor does hell
breathe forth contagion. Here magpies float
their break-voiced fluting through the frosted air;
gonad-swollen, juice-charged before indeed
the rising sap bursts wattles into flower,
those urgent singers fill the nights with call-notes,
prey now to the magic of the Mother.