Building a rockery
Stopping, watching.
Robins’ nesting close
Stop work do not startle.
Stop for incoming worms
Love those birds.
Mouths to feed
Stopping with care and wonder.

Hen and Cock, working to ends
Chicks gaped ochre mouths
Cheeping, stop work, move away.
They cry.
Worm after worm
Rock after rock.
Both building
Only rock is dead.

Lovers tiff, leaving permanently.
Returning to collect.
Nest trashed, chicks are gone
Temper, revenge petulant act.
Harmony to blackness
I do not believe.
Cock and Hen are none
For humanity despair.

Magpie, I was told
Silver ringlets, Gothic black.
The plumage of hate
Callous, cruel revenge.
Magpie I was told
Swooping from the sky.
I cry for our chicks, Cock and Hen
Despising humanity.

I cannot hate
I cannot forget.
Silver ringlets Gothic black
Unnamed baby.
Un fledged birds
Speechless no words.
Cruel act, precise
Where was mother.

Do I imagine cruelty
Swooping black and white killer.
Natural is predator bird
Natural is jealousy, hate and revenge.
Conjecture unsound
Sub text rebounds
I lied, It is natural
My hatred of Silver ringlets and Gothic black.