My daughter brought a Jackdaw in the house

And grief introduced itself

 

Melancholic and wounded

It hunched in the corner of the room

She fed him her loving eyes

Bread in tweezers

And named him Poe

 

Then this sanctuary

Took him

She phoned every night

He was mending well and with the magpies...

He was in the biggest aviary...

He was set free.

But we never saw that.

 

And forever after

We imagined

We willed

We wanted

Each feathered shadow on the school run

To be him again

Watching us

Guarding us

 

We talked of the unease

From the unsolved

And I resolved to salve-

'When I am gone, I'll be all of them birds

I won't ever really leave you.

I'll watch over you

Tending to your path; like Poe does with us.'

 

Now

On our way 

Every wing

Whispers-

'Always.'