‘Magpie’s Nest’ & Other Poems

Magpie’s Nest

Now home is here: the elder tree, nightingales,

a stream. What can I say about then

but that which I remember.

To unbuild a home, I must leave.

The silence in the forest is full of birdsong,

damp soil, scampering green lizards;

I watch—quiet, patient to see one

fluorescent body behind a shrub, a yellow eye staring.

A man rakes grass into a pile of hay;

what emerges: a memory of reeds, insects over a marsh.

My body, roughened, staves off moss.

On a birch, a magpie’s nest; twigs fetched all day,

one after the other; if it falls, it will fall.

If an eagle takes an egg, it will take it.

An Unspoken Covenant

A jackdaw lands on the edge of a roof,

wipes snow from a walnut it has taken,

taps the shell until it cracks apart.

It glances at another bird passing above,

the sudden shift of snow on an awning.

Steely beak picks at the nut, knocks caw

into the air, leaving its meagre feast split,

as it disappears over a karstic lake.

On the water, coots have less room to hide

now that more reeds have been cut,

and snow has pushed the rusted clumps over,

unmelted ice keeping them down.

As the sun falls behind steep mountains,

a clattering of jackdaws settles on birches,

and all closes in. The fall breaks illusion:

now, it is not even ‘I’ that does not see.

In a room, a painting of Poseidon on a rock:

outside the frame; illumination, a wall.

This Morning I Was Not a Bird

This morning, while sitting on a park bench,

watching birds in the trees, I realised I had feathers

and that I was a pigeon sitting on a branch.

When I landed on a path strewn with crumbs,

a dog I didn’t notice ran after me. I flew,

and when I landed in an open space,

a boy threw pebbles at me; his mother told him

to stop as it was time to go home.

I wondered if I was a pterodactyl, or a heron,

would things have been different.

I joined a flock of other pigeons and settled in,

pecked at seeds, opened my wings to the crisp air.

In the woods, I spotted a white bone,

and a worn map of the area. There was nothing I could do

except renounce the gifts I once had: two hands,

a long reach, the ability to reflect and ponder,

embrace the trunk of a tree. I flew over the woods,

perched on the roof of a hidden chapel.

The door was shut. Inside, someone on a lyre;

I moved to the ledge of a high window, and listened.