Pheasant, by Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
(From Winter Trees. London, 1971.)
You said you would kill it this morning.
Do not kill it. It startles me still,
The jut of that odd, dark head, pacing
Through the uncut grass on the elm's hill.
It is something to own a pheasant,
Or just to be visited at all.
I am not mystical: it isn't
As if I thought it had a spirit.
It is simply in its element.
That gives it a kingliness, a right.
The print of its big foot last winter,
The trail-track, on the snow in our court
The wonder of it, in that pallor,
Through crosshatch of sparrow and starling.
Is it its rareness, then? It is rare.
But a dozen would be worth having,
A hundred, on that hill-green and red,
Crossing and recrossing: a fine thing!
It is such a good shape, so vivid.
It's a little cornucopia.
It unclaps, brown as a leaf, and loud,
Settles in the elm, and is easy.
It was sunning in the narcissi.
I trespass stupidly. Let be, let be.
***
Vi fortsätter med en beskrivning av den lilla vaktelns rede. Vaktel heter "Quail" på engelska.
Quails nest, by Dorothy Hewett (1923-2002)
(From Halfway up the mountain. Fremantle, W.A. : Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2001.)
My father swerves the team
to miss the quail's nest
hidden in the furrow
she rises up beating her wings
her cries fill all the world
of sky and cloud echoing her call ...
and so he passes
the caring farmer with his crooked furrow
saluting life the warm round eggs
hidden in the spring grass
the quail rising and falling
pulled by invisible heartstrings.
***
Jag avslutar med ett diktavsnitt som beskriver tranan som en glidande balettdansös.
Ur [Yesterday, the sunshine made the air glow], by Jimmy Santiago Baca (f. 1952)
(From Winter Poems Along the Río Grande. New York : New Directions Pub., 2004.)
I wanted to write you a poem for two days now
to tell you how happy I was,
seeing a white crane arc
between banks in the irrigation ditch
with furious efforts, its big wings flapping
like an awkward nine-year-old kid
much taller than the others his age
with size twelve sneakers
flapping down the basketball court.
But once the white crane
found its balance, its wings their grace, it glided more perfectly
than a ballet dancer's leap across air,
all of its feathers ballet dancer's toes,
all of its feathers delicate dancers
all of its feathers, in motion
made me believe in myself,
but more,
when it rose, swooped up,
the line of ascent up
made me think of the curve of your spine,
how I traced my finger down your spine
when you slept,
your spine
is the ascent of the crane
toward the sunshine,
and my hands my face my torso and chest and legs and hips
became air, a blue cold artic air
you glided up in your song of winter love.
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