Magpie

I run my fingers down the basin of our pond,

Drained, not dry—it hasn’t been long.

My hand cramps a twitch like a fish out of water,

Stuck in the reeds—why bother.

I trace old footsteps buried in the silt,

From when detritus fed beneath the weight of empty guilt,

Moss clings where touch thrived, growing from a lure,

Breathless, I gape your silence—soft and pure.

Yet on the surface ripples fragments of phone notes, and strangers on the street

Who replace the ways we walked the shore, and all my memories.

Vocabulary’s narrow, casting far too deep,

To reel another firework, let embers burn my feet to see a smile, 

My jacket wrapped round rosy cheeks,

Laughter from the sofa, pictures in the peaks,

If borrowed time was sacred, what’s left of ours’s divine,

I’ll ode to you my words, and to another time.

I’ll try to hold on tight when the wren begins to fly,

And the clouds cover the sun in spring, and the earth brings birth to die.

I’ll try avoid the tulips, and think of one instead,

I’ll salute the single magpie, whose beak brings summer to its head 

With fallen cherry blossom petals,

And the morning dew that makes them look like precious metals,

And it’s corvid cohort nesting cosy where it’s settled,

Rests between the nettles.

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I think this poem is a little messy, but I believe there's pieces of perfection amongst it. Certain species really resonate different time periods for me, and you'll notice specific species of birds tied to feeling or memory. The final stanza epitomises that connection, tying the nature of animals to the way we process life and its complexities. Often those simple parallels speak clearer than expression. Maybe that's why this poem is a little messy.