The Mistle Thrush

This bird is not the slim song thrush
which filled green gardens with the rush
and drip of notes.  Cats and the push
of concrete stopped it, gone, gone, gone.

It was a mistle thrush I prised,
speckled as day, to run alive
from cat to parents.  Did it thrive?
The loitering cat is long, long gone.

This thrush has triple cries, a brash
iron throat where Scunthorpe steels are dashed
on scrap for China, ring and clash.
What does it warn us? Sun, planes, gone.

It perches on the thin frayed trees
above the railway.  It frees
rocked notes, the rare drops flung on breeze
in drought.  Keep on. Keep on. Keep on.

Alison Brackenbury

If you have any comments on this poem, Alison Brackenbury would be pleased to hear from you.