We are Magpies

For our 13s who flew the nest today. Mrs Magpie and her mate are sad to see them go but proud.

We are Magpies, she said
And they scratched gently with still soft beaks,
Tapped at the surface of a lifetime’s words
Stretched out before them;
Tales of misanthropes and windswept trees; of withered heights
And wuthered dreams.
And still they kept their feathers dry.

We are Magpies, she said,
And swore blue murder
There’d be room enough for them
To fill the view with interrogatives
Honed to an owl’s sharp wit:
Why men cry “breake, blowe, burn”;
Why shadowed women hold their breath;
And they peered outwards and inwards through the slanting light.

We are Magpies, he said
And dragged them up the corridor of time.
They learned, Delio-like,
to call a spade a spade,
And avoid plaugue-trodden pigeons
Where possible.

We are Magpies, they said,
Collecting others’ treasures,
Coveting another’s gifts
But not the cuckoo’s life for us;
Stay wild though seeming tame,
And find a tongue, give true account
And go.

May 2009