Today I managed to capture (with a camera) a bird that has become a fairly regular visitor to our garden. I was able to stand just a couple of metres away from the sparrowhawk as he sat in the wood store waiting patiently for the goldfinches to return. This time it was the male and thankfully he was unsuccessful. Yes, I know that they have to eat too, but I’d rather they left the goldfinches.
When I wrote the poem below it was the female who sat waiting, this time under the hedge, and she didn’t go away hungry.
Beauty of no Consequence
A fluster of brown beneath the hedge
catches my eye. I look more closely.
Then, so clearly I see her
stilled into a statue, but with
eyes that drill the March air.
No movement as she stares
defying challenges. But the garden
has emptied. No birds to be seen
except the lifeless bundle pressed
into the grass beneath her feet.
Those eyes are mine-dark black,
ringed with yellow. She quickly
begins plucking feathers from her prey,
gold, black, beauty of no consequence
rejected, tossed away.
A moment of distraction, when I look back.
she’s gone – leaving the garden
with feathers lying in an empty silence.
Life's a Beach 