My sister – camping on the coast
Muttering over macaroni
Fixing salad
Talking to a seagull
“George” mews like a cat
awaiting dinner
Waddling web-foot along the stony cliff
To him – life is a handout
against the backdrop of the setting sun
Garlic bread, spaghetti, chocolate chip cookie –
My sister adopts things
What was ever wild after?
Even this “Master of the Wind”
eats Italian tonight!
Till the “Alpha Bird”
younger stronger
spots the eye of orange on plate of white –
Whirls in on protest and demand
George responds in kind
Intruder seizes a meatball
George squawks and lunges
his last...
________
The sunset on the Maine coast tonight
enthroned in vaporous haze
Imbued with fragrance-- ocean rose
The sky-- delicate
mountain laurel pink
bleeding into purple
where the tallest spires of spruce
have stabbed upward
From the coastline's rock
comes qweedling of the robins
calls of sea birds in the peaceful distance....
___________
….George struggles in Alpha's grip
on windpipe
Meal forgotten
as nature serves its worst
His neck arched back
Wings fluttering desperate
in his last display
a spray of feathers
Strength will take this day
Plunge it into faint squawks
George dissolves limp in quivers
as Alpha--
weightless victor
lifts away
Suzy cries out
despair at loss of little friend
“I can't! I can't!
I rush out to hold
his last limp sigh
...tossing his gray and white into another sky
Aug 15, 2019
Aug 15, 2019 at 11:55 AM UTC
My sister – camping on the coast
Muttering over macaroni
Fixing salad
Talking to a seagull
“George” mews like a cat
awaiting dinner
Waddling web-foot along the stony cliff
To him – life is a handout
against the backdrop of the setting sun
Garlic bread, spaghetti, chocolate chip cookie –
My sister adopts things
What was ever wild after?
Even this “Master of the Wind”
eats Italian tonight!
Till the “Alpha Bird”
younger stronger
spots the eye of orange on plate of white –
Whirls in on protest and demand
George responds in kind
Intruder seizes a meatball
George squawks and lunges
his last...
________
The sunset on the Maine coast tonight
enthroned in vaporous haze
Imbued with fragrance-- ocean rose
The sky-- delicate
mountain laurel pink
bleeding into purple
where the tallest spires of spruce
have stabbed upward
From the coastline's rock
comes qweedling of the robins
calls of sea birds in the peaceful distance....
___________
….George struggles in Alpha's grip
on windpipe
Meal forgotten
as nature serves its worst
His neck arched back
Wings fluttering desperate
in his last display
a spray of feathers
Strength will take this day
Plunge it into faint squawks
George dissolves limp in quivers
as Alpha--
weightless victor
lifts away
Suzy cries out
despair at loss of little friend
“I can't! I can't!
I rush out to hold
his last limp sigh
...tossing his gray and white into another sky
This actually happened. Hermit Island, Maine.
Written several years ago and lost the second half in one of my forays into house cleaning. :)
A painful rewrite, but I think I finally caught it-- even better than the original.
I don't know where the italics came from, but they are perfect! Thank you.
For my sister, Suzy