The healthy forager

If there is one downside to cycling, it’s seeing all the dead animals at the side of the road. Birds, deer, badgers, rabbits, squirrels, foxes… especially the birds get me. Most of my rides are punctuated with grief for a soul that died before its time. I cope by writing them a poem. Here’s one for a curlew I saw today.

‐————-
To a curlew

Her small leafbrown body
is cast aside between road and grass

The bright blue sky
is reflected in her dark open eye
that no longer sees

But last year’s summer still hears her
haunting call
The now-sleeping fields
still dream her fleeting shadow
The wind still feels
her bow-curved wings

She has lived

And she is fully known

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