The Pathetic Fallacy Revisited
Don’t Tell Me Birds are Kin to Dinosaurs
The birds of course, are kin to you and me:
I’ve seen a lover-loser, proved too weak,
Attack the ground, as Xerxes spanked the sea,
He bruising water, the bird, its tiny beak.
I’ve seen cold sparrows ranged along a wire,
An inch apart, as if by firm decree:
To space beyond that inch none dares aspire,
And cuddling seems an avian infamy.
I’ve seen near seas a sycophantic gull,
A cautious waiter at an osprey’s feast.
I’ve seen his colleagues find the beach too dull,
Their interest in our Dumpsters much increased.
I’ve seen officious buzzards, robed in sable,
Convened pro tem at sudden death’s fruition
A flattened armadillo as their table,
As well as corpus for their disquisition.
I’ve seen a gang of starlings raid a nest,
Then flee from those who’d loved the shattered egg.
I’ve seen them foul a copper hero’s crest
And peck a brother who had lost a leg.
So dinosaurs, I fear, get off Scot free;
The birds, it seems, are kin to you and me.
(1987)
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