Fieldfare in a Winter Orchard, by Marjory Caine

This poem by our member Marjory Caine was selected for and published in our Folio #72, in 2018.

Fieldfare in a Winter Orchard

Do you not know the beauty of your flight
as you wheel and spin in winter skies
fleeing from the danger of my sight?

Your underwings flash white runes that are bright
while your raucous chacker chack chack recedes
with the patterned memory of your sudden flight.

As viking raiders from northern fjords you alight
on scavenged apples of fermented waste,
yet flee as one from danger before my sight.

Your beserkers mingle with others in flight:
green woodpeckers, starlings, wood pigeons
who do not know the beauty of being your satellites.

I remain clay-bound below winter light.
Shards of grass break, leave imprints of me alone;
while you fly along invisible paths from sight.

I strive this season to follow the transient rites
that herald a nomadic existence outside my life -
do you not know the beauty of your flight,
as you flee from the unknown danger of my plight?