The Shine Journal

Avian Adornments in D. C.

Standing at a monument I heard
fluttering, as a flock of birds
settled on a dark, imposing statue
of Ulysses S. Grant.
They’re turning him white
to match the sidewalk’s hue.
Their banal coos can’t
match a rebel yell for spite,
but they use the Yankee hero
as if he were a hated foe.
He’s a convenient loo
where they alight
and add a thing or two
before taking flight
and wheeling in the sky
as a Merlin warrior defends
the soldier that Abraham raised high.
Hawk takes one pigeon when
it breaks ranks to become bird pie
as the soft, plucked feathers fall
to adorn the statue on the mall.



 The Southland’s Jazzbird

Who is singing his repertoire ceaselessly
as if he would imitate every sound?
Challenging quiet of moonlit summer nights,
worrying the guilty who are sleepless,
entertaining those without an orchestra,
the mockingbird’s musical shuffle
throws its anthems into southern summer air—
a vireo’s sneeer, the tanager’s chip-burr,
my cat’s meow, my dog’s repeated barks,
the thrush’s violin, the siren’s harsh screech—
these sounds, and more, melded into symphonic
forms that human musicians must envy
if they live in a world alive with sound.

I wonder how much old jazz musicians
owe to growing up with mockingbirds?
Scatting with mate somberly attired as he,
he sings to her and to announce he’ll fight
any brazen enemy sneaking
in to steal his larder of insects and fruit;
he may attack even cats or people
who fail to observe respectful distance.
Only the polite enjoy his serenades.
The more southerly birds have the largest
song list. They’ve had success at cutting heads.
Losers move north to less inviting climes
where mockers’ hot jam sessions aren’t as fierce.

contest winner, Gulf Coast Poets, printed by them

Lighting Up With Flash

A blinding light changes dark to daylight
for brief, very transitory moment—
like battlefields at night lit up by shells
exploding, or lightning flash in night storm.
Photographs taken with a flash bulb
throw brightness on a subject in dim light
but leave the background in dark shadow.
I have a picture taken with photoflash
of me with ring-tailed lemur wrapped around
my neck at a drab place called Ifaty
on Madagascar. It is hard to tell
which of us is flashing the widest grin;
we stare out from the photo happily
ignoring the deep shadow of background
squalor. The lemur was a pet, not wild,
and did not know the beauty of the trees
in which his relatives still roamed free;
he dwelled in an unnatural atmosphere
as dark as the shadows in our photo
where he will live as a prized negative.

Bio: Richard Peake is a native of Virginia who is now a resident of Texas, taught English at the Univ. of Va.'s College at Wise for 30 years; now retired; published in Georgia Review and in Impetus alongside Ciardi and in other small magazines;amateur ornithologist, past president of Virginia Society of Ornithology; now member of Poetry Society of Texas

Motivation:

Avian Adornments...: response to seeing pigeons defacing statue near National Arboretum
The Southland's ...: I just dig mockingbirds
Lighting Up ...: response to a photo of an experience in Madagascar on a birding trip (contest winner, Gulf Coast Poets, printed by them)