Читать книгу Intrusive Beauty - Joseph J. Capista - Страница 11

A Child Bird-Scarer

After an illustration in Life in Victorian England

I started at six with tin and a stick

scattering creatures from sharp seed sown

in Shalbourne furrows. Stones moved

what clamor couldn’t—starlings, crows,

a clattering of jackdaws rose

to perch on dormer sills and startle

their own glass-bent reflections, escape

a joke at which they alone cackled.

My boy, master chastened, mind

those beasts—see that seed takes.

So I lurked fencerows and puddles,

frightening what I knew would fly.

Sometimes a cruelty rose in me

I could not tell apart from all

I pitched at them. The stick I clutched

has doubled now in length, the tin

turned tines. Haymaking days, I wade

knee-deep in crop to stook, then bale.

I’ll steal away tonight and lie

atop the brittle piles, watch stars

as small as seeds I’d sown myself.

What I remember best is chasing

a field full of black wings knowing

they would only lift, loll, and drift

one hill over, far enough they might

forget whatever it is they feared.