earlier today I read a poem online
Things I Say To Myself While Hanging Out Laundry
(a woman hangs out sheets and meditates
on ants and Albert Einstein)

an hour later I went out with the clothes basket

no wind
shed door wide open
the soggy lawn

towels and sheets,
shirts and pjs
I'd just finished  
3 men's hankies peg peg peg
3 grey dog tails limp in the air
when a bird started up
in the yard next door
over the fence in  a leafless tree
tangle of  branches
network of buds
three brown birds
cleaning beaks,
shucking off dust from feathers
and one making music
little chest throbbing
doubling and trebling
one bell, two bells
stroking the air

On a grey afternoon
the song of that bird
called up a memory
my mother stringing the line
with nappies and bunny-rugs,
jumpers and school socks,
and whistling while she pegged.

A nine year old sitting on the stone step
at the back door
and mum winding up the line
and filling the old blue basin
under the plum tree..