Choosing The Route

Patrick B Osada

ISBN 978-1-907401-13-8

86 pages

£7.50

PUBLICATION: 01/10/2010

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PRIVET

    …I cannot like the scent,
Yet I would rather give up others more sweet,
With no meaning, than this bitter one
  (Old Man – Edward Thomas)

Initially, like Thomas’s “Old Man,”
this pungent smell is difficult to place :
familiar – both bitter and yet sweet –
it does not chime with me like other scents.

Hovering on thick air like memories,
it stops me in my tracks and makes me think :
arriving in fresh waves, just like the past,
it leads me to a hedge across the street.

Carefully shaped : dark leaves cut trim and close,
do not disclose the very thing I seek
but, where the shears have missed a growing tip,
tiny white spikes of flowers now persist.

There, softly in late sun, scent speaks to me :
transports me down the vista of the years
to where an old man, dressed in corduroy,
flashes quick shears, watched by a lonely boy.

 
DARK

As life's a bitch I worry about time
And seek enough to endure my small pain :
To see my words dance in a glowing line,
Turn into verse that proudly bears my name.

When looking up into a clear blue sky
I trace the jet trails high above the strand,
And wonder if I'll ever live to share
The magic and romance of distant lands.

Then thinking, my sweet lady, of the day
That's sure to come when I see you no more,
Never again delighting in your ways
Or with your perfect love to rest secure –

At fate's lousy joke, I'll laugh if I can –
Life happens when you're busy making plans.

FORCE of NATURE

Whoosh! Like a force of nature they arrive…
Starlings. This boisterous, squawking, noisy mob,
 strutting, uncouth gang, intimidate all
cautious birds : dunnocks, chaffinch, secret wrens.

Spreading across the feeding site, they clear
spilt grain, steal perches from the smaller birds.
Clumsily they ride the feeder’s wild swing –
scattering seed on hooligans below,
stabbing at brave sparrows, bluetits, finches
whose presence threatens to disrupt the show.

Leaving as quickly as they came, this flock-
of-one-mind swarms a laden apple tree
to ruin near-ripe fruit with casual pecks.
Then off again, a ragged hurtling mass,
to pounce on fields, string power lines like beads.

At day’s close they rise as one : this wheeling,
darkling flock shape-shifts in a setting sun.
Across the land a ritual soon repeats :
sharing a common pulse they turn, turn again,
flocks swoop fields, skirt factories, circle streets
as they follow weird tracks through empty air –
invisible to all but these strange birds.

At old Bisham two golfers have to wait
as starlings drive the fairway of the eighth;
like swarming bees they funnel single file,
descend upon an ivy-covered trunk
to disappear completely – swallowed up…
Creating, from a tree and avian clan,
a trembling, cackling sight of the Green Man.

THE VEERY BIRD
  (Catharus Fuscesceus)

It was the twittering that brought them here,
texts, blogs, directions on a birder’s site.
Along the road they came in droves : same clothes –
their colours uniform, all browns and green –
same team supporters, late for their big match.

And locals joined in too : small boys on bikes,
men with hoes, abandoned their allotments
to lean on gates and watch these twitchers pass;
even young lovers marry with the queue :
desire now focussed on a migrant bird.

Labouring at the rear, a fat man sweats
in camouflage, long lenses ready set
to catch history if he’s not too late…

But late he was – murder was committed :
he missed the bird, snapped the cat who did it.

“Rare bird flew from US to be eaten by a cat” – Daily Record