Nothing the hedgerows say

I’m enclosed by encrypted conversation: thickets of pulses and whistles and clicks. Songs. Each border with a voice distinct as a man’s – each tree, a tongue. I hear the grass gossiping, repeating what it thinks the wind has told it;

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hear it whisper a secret from blade to blade,

rush it away in all directions at once. Silence from me and the water overhead, now a dragon, now a sleeping boy. Dumb shapes, fathoming nothing. Nothing the hedgerows say.