Poor Creature of a Bird

A poem

Photo by Kristina Paukshtite from Pexels

My secateurs clip the dead wood

from the Pom-Pom Tree.

Gnarled bits hit my face;

clipping up, I spy it —

its wings are mattered close to its body;

Caught, grey and wet,

Hanging by a

Single, black thread;

wound round one claw,

Suspended upside-down;

With one eye missing.

Its struggle has shortened

The thread — spun it up,

Entrapping it in the thicket.

The small body, I cut down — burying it

Underneath the Pom-Pom Tree.

Its heritage is the soft grey earth,

of my favourite garden bed.

I wonder now,

as I sew my latest black skirt:

If only I’d gardened yesterday?