Among the Leaves The first to come peers without malice from the wires towards the forest branches in the nearby slope. That afternoon I watch both pallid cuckoos, grey on grey with rounded heads prison stripes on their tails, fly wings-spread half gliding above the canopy into a slow west wind, searching downward for the nest to con with their egg and the large chick that will eject other nestlings for their feeds. The time of crime passes into heat and the cuckoos and their young move on in nature’s daunting tolerance.                                            Paul Williamson   The Close Distance In…