— I heard a young blackbird practising his song; and I could tell by a particular interval in it that he had copied it from something human. The mechanical ditty of a disarmed alarm. Ugly in itself, and uglier for what I knew it to be. A blackbird in Bicester confounded the police by mimicking their siren. They couldn’t believe a bird could be so accurate. As if the bird were trying. As if its song were speech. Why have you stopped?

 — It’s so green – the water.

 — I hadn’t seen it. It scares me, a bit. The duckweed looks like dyed asphalt. You might think it a special walkway and fall in. N sent me a recording of a nightingale from Berlin. I’ve never heard one in the wild. It was, yes, beautiful. But uncanny. Only we could find it, could label it beautiful. I suppose the nightingales find it – sexy, hot, is that a term that could be transferred in that way? But we don’t. It’s the opposite of AI, isn’t it – isn’t it? The unintending mirror of language use so attenuated as to seem already barely human, language on autopilot that presents itself as thought. Someone, a student, wrote me a thank you note using ChatGPT. It made me angry, even a bit sick. When you ask ChatGPT to do a creative writing assignment it’s all myriads and satiation, the language of writing that wants to look like writing – like poetry. Beautiful only ever in its mistakes, I mean when a human does it. ‘This strange and age old practise was glossylalya, to speak with tongues…There was nothing in the world he wanted than to yeeld totaly, to go across to them, to speak as they were speaking.’ The nightingale is nothing but intention. Bypassing sublimation. Its entire being becoming song.

 — That tree looks good for climbing.

 — All right, let’s climb it. I wish I had an eye for these things, like you. The moments when we rhyme with nature, the length of a limb, an arm’s reach. But the student intended to thank me. Does it matter whether the sausage is cranked by hand. When I wrote to the students I decided not to copy and paste, but of course I used the same words in different combinations. Congratulations and good luck! Congratulations and goodbye! Congratulations and good wishes! Best of luck, all my best wishes. I wanted them to know I had chosen words for them, even if the stock was small. If they compared. When people talk of the beauty of birdsong, I sometimes wonder if they have ever listened to it. They mean that it is there. A skylark sounds like a modem – but then, for us, even a modem sings. No sound more like yearning, of yearning. Starting it up in the hope of an email. Later the leg vibrating. The muscle twitch when your phone was in your bag. Ghost of a love song.

 — Look – the goslings.

 — You touched it! I would not have dared. Or wanted. A pleasant sensation that is not mine to have. Not been given to me by someone who wants me to have it. Even its pleasantness unintentional. Soft because unfinished. You could laugh at the mistakes AI makes. But they are not funny. We are funny. The gosling isn’t funny. It trips, a glitch. I’m laughing, but in shame.