ode to a cape turtle dove

 

in the throes
of a bird life’s here or there
then, could you choose?
with life hinged on one option
out of the violent storm.
could there have  been another?

what other thicket? i know,
the greenbelt’s become
wood in a stranger’s fire.
a tired fight, not defeated
yet, with burners’ memory short
tinder, like embers, have grown eager

so, to a perch, the, that perch, under-roof
with a ,the, that dog drooling
with a taste for bird…

was this all?
no way out, no flight, space
nowhere to hide, sit.
no place in between
bird and dog with hunger
in a storm with no rest

in what murphy’s to offer,
a frenzied flutter would end
in a wet plumed clutch.
insatiable hunger resolved
to eat morsel to the feather
in the beating storm

the weather would subside
to the easy calm of a post-storm,
under roof, the dog licked a paw.
there was no choice, option
to weather the elements,
nowhere else than to die, a meal?

outside, a violent storm
under-roof, a cold and hungry dog
could you have chosen the latter?
in between the violence of winter
and the claw of a canine’s hunger,
you were not driven to the former.
!gda