Shufflings in the shrubbery,
leapings on the lawn,
furtive assignations and who knows what skullduggery,
surreptitious shadow shapes, sundown to dawn.
It’s my own familiar garden but it happens out of sight:
it’s all undercover
…under cover of the night.
Nighttime was a blank space, destitute of life,
a time I’d stop the clock and quit the world.
But then I bought a camera to monitor the pilferers
which lit another ecosphere where animals are rife
and a galaxy of rapture’s unfurled.
I’ve hit upon a garden of unearthly delights
and it’s all undercover
…under cover of the night.
Foxes dance fandangos,
moths vibrate like banjos,
flitterings and flutterings
furtive slinks and flapping wings,
froggy flirts and badgerings.
I’d blanketed these happenings
but now I know there’s hopping things
cavorting on my lawn while the neighbourhood sleeps tight
and it’s all undercover,
all undercover
…under cover of the night.
Who’d’ve thought a hedgehog
could sock it like a pugilist?
Who’d’ve known that prickly pig
was such a hardened anarchist?
In a tryst the hog’ll wrest control from his contestants,
grunting and shunting the rivals of resistance
then prickling the mistress to submit by sheer persistence.
So cuddle to your lover for your ardour.
Ignore the huffs and puffs out in the border,
the agapanthus shiver, the pink dianthus quiver.
Dive beneath your duvet and be glad it’s undercover,
unseen, unheard…all right.
It’s all undercover,
all undercover,
….undercover of the night.
