Intransit

Wednesday; A poem that took ages.

Winter Feeding

January.
Sitting at peace, content
peering through french doors
ignoring my reflection.
Birds ignore me

Three bird feeders
catching the rhythm
swing on pollarded remains
of autumn’s last chop

A trinity of reserve,
hope for this winter

One, a basket of suet
to clothe fragile bones
Two, a station of black sunflower seeds;
oil for joints and aerial locomotion
Three, a tower of seeds with ports of call
for almost one and all, almost

Visitors aplenty passing through
jostle for life on invisible stairs
Alpha male sparrow sporting cravat
barging into tiniest gaps, scattering seeds
unaware of his bounty
to those below
Elegant greenfinch, tubby blue tit, corporal chaffinch
deploying beaks in short sharp attacks
on suet, seed, nut
House sparrows
helicopter in
with flying school precision

A duck, a dart, a weave
of near misses
as a great tit fails
to master the art
of bilocation
while pushy Robin flicks his tail with affectation

Aloft, a magpie’s crackling announcement
introduces her handsome cousin:
Jay (kingfisher blue tuxedo)
floats to the catwalk
struts his stuff
and is gone

Courting collared doves meander
in pairs through priapic shoots
delicately picking
at the entree between

Food to stand in stead
against chills that take no prisoner
A wren peeps from the blackness below
waiting her turn, weighing the odds, wavering
vanishes.

posted by john @ 7:08 pm