The Friday Poem: Flocks by Rebecca Nash

A new poem by Lyttelton poet Rebecca Nash.

Flocks

The café has run out

of muffin crumbs

and the sparrows

have come

to our woodshed.

They fossick for slaters

and wood hoppers.

Concrete lies under logs,

seeds lie under concrete

incubating in the trapped soil.

Roots strain

into pipes.

There too

are wise little shrivels

of plastic,

with origin stories more

complex than the stories

of sentients.

We should listen to these immortals.

Not ourselves

with our bones,

with our fucking,

our dissolving.

Seagulls pass with sailor voices

hoarse from opening their mouths

to wind roar.

The sparrows turn

to foreign sound

and understand

like we understand

the emotional ripples

of a sad Italian opera –

a story of a gull,

storm-buffeted

tumbling to lagoon.

Inert water swells

its inert carcass.

A flash of memory.

The flock flies on,

its grief is a moving song.

The Friday Poem is edited by Ashleigh Young. Submissions are welcome at thefridaypoem@gmail.com