A Trio of Blackbirds…
Scattered, torn morsels of stale loaves
On mown, self-laid lawn
Had enticed her,
Latterly.
Dull brown, with alert eyes,
She would swoop onto her one leg, forlorn
And embrace her
Meal, eagerly and utterly.
Scattered, strewn parcels of moved belongings,
One morn’, a jumble at dawn:
I noticed her,
Skittering.
Plain brown, with erect tail,
She could stoop onto her one leg, forlorn…
I embraced her
Zeal, curiously stuttering.
The apex of my umbrella
Slid on the tea-shop’s fake green lawn,
The brolly forming the hypotenuse,
An incline, a perch, for a blackbird forlorn…
Tempted by a pastry morsel,
She sidestepped, reaching an inquisitive beak
To my fingers, as upwards she crept,
The crumbling scone to seek…
Clumsily, I dropped the food,
She swooped and took the bait
But she would return forthwith;
In expectation I watched her wait…
Tentatively, I held out more of the pastry,
Tentatively, my hand she approached;
Tentatively, she took my offering,
Tentatively our lives had encroached…
Pete Ray
August 2015
Whilst living in Tamworth, during 1978, a female blackbird with her right leg missing would feed on bread and scraps in my garden. I looked out for her. On the day I moved back into Birmingham, I had not seen her. The removals van left, I climbed into my car but couldn’t leave. I walked to the rear of the house and there she was, standing on the garden fence. I spoke a silent farewell.
The following morning, I awoke very early in the new house in Hodge Hill, for I was to travel with the kids from my school to a Whitsun week’s camping break but with boxes lying about in the lounge, I opened the curtains to find, on the back lawn, a female blackbird with her left leg missing. It was astonishing…
A couple of weeks back, at the Tisanes tea-rooms in Broadway, Worcestershire, a female blackbird took food from my fingers. This completed the circle for me…
BELOW:
MORE IMAGES FROM HILLER'S GARDEN CENTRE, NEAR RAGLEY HALL...
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