Feed The Birds

She plucks a feather from her breast and bleeds
to line her nest. No phoenix ever burns
so bright, nor magpie steals more precious beads.

While starlings wheel and cuckoos chime, he turns
both earth and clock-hands to mark the vernal
equinox. 'Life is hard' is all he learns.

Her sharp beak is shaped to crack the kernel
of each seed he sows. One man breaks his back
to feed her brood. Nature keeps no journal.

Neither dove in stained-glass window nor black
hawk above the spire know aught of mankind's
struggle to walk along its rutted track.

Sun drains from sanguine clouds. He pulls the blinds.
She stoops to filch discarded bacon rinds.