How towering tall the grasses have grown
these last few rainy days, drying now
in this May-sweet, maybe just an interval;
habitations of sunlight weave, on ultraviolet looms,
their own selves out of water and air
gifting us breath under scent-shock rifts.
There's an odd, fluffed-out blackbird - thought bedraggled,
but, no, its a big fledged chick, sitting in the apple tree:
'Twit a twit-twit,' is all its song
- but dodged
a veering magpie trailing claws so casually!
Didn't like the look of that. Our-kid's no savvy,
out beyond nest rim in the brave new world.
Such a big, clumsy target, self advertising.
In for more coffee - pour Joe a jug of juice -
but when I come back to my poet seat,
there down on the gravel by the tool-shed
with bloody back raw-red and rueful,
fearful, guilty glance it squats and squeezes
into the crawl-space under board floor
between the corner plinths... to hide...to die.
That magpie's struck it in my absence,
or a cat?
I take my kids out to the park -
it might emerge if I'm not sitting out;
and its parents seeking, listening for a silenced call.
The day, begun with heavy rain, pledges to sun -
borders of lilac, glorious rhododendron reds,
meadows of buttercups and daisies
coffee and ice-cream treats on cafe verandah
overlooking the crazy putting.
Home again
to prepare the evening meal.
Step outside
with a bagged up kitchen bin-load.
The chick's
on its bloody side in the side passage near
the back gate. Mother's trying to feed it
startles away.
"It's all right, Love," I gentle her.
"Don't mind me." Empty bag in bin; return in;
leave them to their inevitabilities.
I wouldn't snuff the flicker of its life out sharp.
I think the parents have the right of it
to live it out in full, the tragedy, even through
the suffering and the futility. And Urshie says,
as she stirs pans, she's of a mind with me.
It's not so long before its life ebbs out;
I see the shallow heaving of the little hill be still;
the mother in attendance will not leave -
I have little appetite; Joe eats half my share.
I take the children back. Now sitting out alone,
I see the father's on the evening turn of duty,
standing there now by the back door
by big-kid's silent, horrid side;
and I must drain this glass of red and drink to them.
The sun's atop the tallest of white hawthorn
and all the sky is pastel white and blue,
white monuments of dandelion globes
dried out through day await the evening dew -
and blackbird eulogies to dusk seem elegies,
as there were no distinctions to be made.
