A few days ago, the lovely Isobel commented that I’m addicted to photo challenges. She’s right of course, I am, even my own weekly Thursday one. So this week, just for a change there’re no photo inspired haiku, just a little poem.

Totem

Twig legs, and wings collapsed like a fallen angel,

flown too early in this false spring of harsh, March winds.

Breast not red, but orange, flame extinguished now,

 the once piercing eyes, blank

issue a question .

Have I the courage to answer?

could I have fed this hungry yearling?

Skeletal, with moulting feathers,

starved, desperate, chilled and lost

with a cracked, fairy porcelain beak

 

No grassy resting place,

in a well-tended suburban border.

No crow will dine on her bones,

on that flagstone path in need of repair.

Rather, old Mr Jones scooping her precious remains,

into a Waitrose bag and the black wheelie bin.

 

This, my totem bird will never renew,

but her spirit has found release, a regeneration,

as my raw heart has revealed,

a new compassion for self, rebirth.

 

On my walk to work a few days ago I saw a dead robin on the path, I did a double take – seeing a dead bird is quite unusual. It made me cry, and I still have the image in my mind, this poem is my response.

Jo isn’t lazy, but she has posted a joyful, spring haiku this Thursday, it definitely cheered me up, thanks honey!