You can tell by the size of the lenses
And the camouflage they wear
They’re here to spot the birds

Not everyone though
There’s one who’s hanging about lazily
Dragged here by his friends

There’s another with a travelogue of a solo circumnavigation on a yacht
The folds of her trousers wet above her knees
Probably from the time she dipped her foot in the lake

Cups of coffee and half eaten sandwiches at the table
Where they sit around peering into the camera displays
Zooming in to see the birds they’ve caught today

Two tables away, he rummages through the pile of books
Pale, dusty, with tired spines, barely standing upright
On a shelf with boxes of board games

Unsure of what to read
He picks a book with a stem hanging out of it
Turns it over to the page and finds a dried leaf

He’s even more unsure now
Whether to read the page it opens to
Or wonder what’s the story of the dried leaf