Watching birds forage the scrawny
lawn for seeds, I admit:
I have been cruel to a student.
Indirect, yet no less effective
for that. The poem about her cat's
"unrelenting love" as comfort
against a colder world
incited my wry analysis
of pet emotions, warnings against
sentiment run amok. A brace
of wrens peck the capsized
feeder. The wind must have done it.
A cardinal scratches after sunflower
husks from the songbird mix.
What do such wild things know
of emotion, sacrifice or moral
systems? Too simple to resist
instinct, they are almost machines —
that was my position, but now I'm
no longer convinced. I saw her
flinch and bite the lining
of her lip for composure. I should
have reviewed clichés or said,
"Strike new fire from the old
motions." What else could I have
told her? Jays and mourning doves,
swifts in their mad circle, and one
mockingbird in the jackpine: all
affirm the hard indictment.
I have been cruel, not as the hawk
is cruel or the cat with his captive
cricket, but in human fashion,
and I will carry this sin with me,
long after winter has withdrawn
these birds. There is no clemency
in the matter I can understand.
R. T. Smith
Copyright © 1996 by R. T. Smith.
Trespasser
Louisiana State University Press
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.