You wouldn't believe...

Mid-morning coffee.
Mesmerised, we watch
the upper spikes of next door's buddleia
cavorting in a kind of war dance
high above our six foot fence.

Stems and spikes
swing wildly through the sky or curtsy,
genuflect, are wrenched from sight
with genuine aggression and surprise -
only to spring back again,
to go on waving as before,
to tell the world they're still okay.

What, we wonder, is disturbing them?
Something far too heavy for the stems...
something unsupportable...
A cat perhaps... a skittish cat... a cat
with thoughts of ambush
hiding from the birds.
Hiding from the birds? it's driving them
away! A weasel someone says...
Surreal - and weasels do not climb.
A rat? My wife sees what she thinks
might be a curly tail - the tip, no more...
A squirrel then? Why would a squirrel
do its best to ravage, flatten and lay waste
my neighbour's buddleia?

And then we see
the stems are fewer than before. They do not
spring back now the way they did.
Beavers! I joke, but no one laughs.
We can't let this go on...
I bravely leave
my coffee to its fate
and walk down to the garden gate
and open it...
Investigate!
Good morning! says a guy with loppers
stuffing chopped-up buddleia stems
into a plastic bag.
I've never seen the chap before:
my neighbour (new) is not - or might 
not be - a single mother after all...