My head has been a host of sparrows.

I did not realise, until this afternoon, as I watched some of the nervous little birds twittering in tangled bramble bushes along the lane.

Their little bodies fluttered between the wiry stems, endlessly twitching and darting.

I felt an instant affinity. My thoughts chattered in reply.

Even as I walked the lanes— half-watching the electric swathes of starlings drifting upwards from the blonde fields—I could not still my distracted, racing thoughts. To slow myself down I silently named all the plants I could see— alexanders, pennywort, red campion, violets, narcissi. Then I moved on to the birds —jackdaws, dunlin, hedge sparrows, magpies. Instead of relaxing, I found myself looking for more, searching my brain for lost names of lichen; looking deeper into the hedgerows, peering between ivy leaves.

A thrush tumbled upwards from bare blackthorn at my approach. What kind of thrush was it? I watched it rolling on the wind, over the hedge and into the long grass. A mistle thrush? Too round. A song thrush? Think!

There is a part of the valley that shines green; where the stream, which gushes uproariously down to the shore, is softer. Goat willow meets ivy-drenched-sycamore branches, and periwinkle laces through lime green nettles. I had meant to go high, to find the winds, to blow my thoughts away. But the sparrows in my head had been too loud— and now I was here, at this crook in the valley, where the sea disappears and the wind rests.

My body knew before my brain did.

The birds in my brain settled.

One

   by

      one.

They smoothed their feathers, cocking their heads to one side. And I stopped walking.

I had gone as far as I needed to.

I sat on the swaying trunk of a willow. I dug my fingers into the luminous moss.

I watched the dog.

I did not try to name anything.

Things happen anyway. I did not need to think about them.

I just needed to rest, with my sparrows, and wait for the spring.