Posts Tagged magpie
PERSPECTIVES
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on July 31st, 2010
From the long window on the half landing, I saw,
almost as soon as you had filled the small bird feeders
under the pine and come inside, the big beasts land
to eat the scattered seeds – three wood pigeons, two turtle doves
and a solitary magpie -Â then a cat appear, the birds scramble
and you again, shooing.
From where the hawk stoops, I heard the magpie’s
irrelevant chatterings, saw a tableau of live flesh;
saw our Victorian suburb from where the airplane flies -
heard nothing above the thrumming of the engines;
from beyond the stratosphere, saw somewhere
still not yet silenced by the enveloping yellow
of the Sahara or the Arctic’s melting blue.
From the long window, I heard the next track begin -
late Billie Holiday, ‘Dancing Cheek to Cheek’ -
heard her miss the key change yet again, promised myself
never to play it yet again.
VIRTUALLY BIRDLESS IN ASSISI
Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on July 23rd, 2009
The Dodo, Ustad Mansur, Agra, 1610
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For Sarah:Â always a conservationist, latterly a twitcher.
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                                i
In Umbria – the cuore verde of pristine, wooded hills,
Orvieto’s honey-pale wines,
the paintings of Perugino and Pisano,
the Tiber’s milky jade,
tartufo nero -
they stew thrush.
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                                ii
At least once in our suburban garden,
house sparrow, green finch, ring-necked dove, wren,
jay, wood pigeon, robin, starling, Â swift, Â jackdaw, blue tit,
magpie, blackbird, sparrowhawk, chaffinch, swallow,
gold crest, bull  finch, great tit, hen harrier, mistle thrush
have, variously, courted, mated, nested, birthed, ate, shat, killed,Â
bobbed, waddled, hopped, walked, pecked, fluttered, shrieked,Â
whistled, warbled, squawked and died.
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                               iii
But, above all, sang – that esoteric music,
rich and varied as their plumage:
untutored, uncultivated, unstinting.
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                                iv
Though only crows circle St. Francis’ basilica,
in Cheshire ostriches are farmed.
How accidents of diet, doctrine, sentiment and flag
determine extinction!
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