Birds

When my father died
There were birds.

That morning
We drove along grey, pre-dawn roads
Through countryside bled dry of colours.
Magpies, jackdaws, crows,
Great carrion birds,
Hopped and flapped their grim dance
Round dark stains on the tarmac.

The next day
I walked alone beside the river.
Small songbirds chattered emptily
In the hedgerows.
Somewhere,
Far off across the misty fields,
A cuckoo mocked me.

On the third day
Two swallows chased each other,
Darting round the chapel eaves.
I saw with clarity
The detail of their jewelled tails
Vivid in the sunlight
Of the newborn day.

GEB

This poem was chosen as best overseas entry in the A.A.S. 2000 Poetry Competition and was subsequently published in the Winner's Anthology.