This morning, in the soft beauty of my garden, I fed seed to the birds. Pheasants, blue tits, robins and a single woodpecker, some long-tailed tits, a murderhood of crows, two magpies and a jackdaw chick. But no pigeons. Later, on the television news, and in that place where birdsong’s scorched mouth drones the skies in open stealth, I find where all those hungry disappeared have flown. A peoplehood of humankind and last among the pecking-order list, they are being offered pigeon food for breakfast.
This poem was first published in the Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
