Dear crew of The Broken Binnacle,
Sharing another poem by Ben Marsh. As you go about your happy, sunny-filled Saturday, memento mori. Besides that, have a wonderful weekend!
I don’t particularly heed bad omens,
Although this creature is the ninth I’ve found
In Eden — a pigeon with its head flattened
Into a bloody patch that stains the flagstone.
~
Here’s an unblemished blackbird lying still
In the dry birdbath; an abandoned nest
Upended on the Adirondack burying
Dead chicks within its twigs; a bullfrog stabbed
~
By my own quarrelsome and nosy rake;
In unkempt mulch, a jay that writhes, undone
By plate glass windows at full speed; Mice rotting
Near the tap (Purrsephone was toying
~
With them until they moved no more); a wasting
Whitetail stag, drinking feebly from my sprinkler,
who limps away and who I find a bit
later up-road with dress-black flies stood, mourning
~
The carcass. My eyes water. So much death
Surrounds and underwrites my paradise.
My dog-poop shovel scoops the pigeon’s bones;
I stretch the hose and rinse the bloodied stones.