Isobel Byrd Billingsley

Isobel Byrd Billingsley Poems

The Best Poem Of Isobel Byrd Billingsley

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<Hunched, gripping the branch of the dry dying tree
Golden brown buzzard, screeching his feed me call
Insistent, parent pleading, 'Feed me',
too young to hunt, to fly too far alone
Feed me '
He spreads brown barred wings, swoops, hesitant, to the next dying tree
Furls shining wings, rustling feathers, crying, calls for mother.
'Feed me, I depend on you, I don't want to be left alone.
Fly with me '.
He calls, whistles, crying piercing alarms and desperate baby pleas.
Mocking magpie twins circle his friable perch, he flies a little away,
Returns again, still calling, 'Feed me stay with me, you're mine;
Feed me'.
Ferny foliage falls from the shaken dying tree
Spilt trunk hollow, echoes, green, yellow and brown fans drift down.
The buzzard's branch peeling, ready to split, to snap.
The dying trees, poisoned, witness to a changing fashion, chemical killer solution
Scatter stained petals down on the burnt brown grass.
In the martyred garden the flowers die, creepers fall
All dying under the summer shine of a sad sun. The buzzard screeches,
Shudders, shakes, ripples his shing feathers, spreads wide his wings
Soars into the sky, swooping strong, planing the air, suddenly self sure.

The dying trees can't fly, can't plead or demand
They can only die silently, faultless, powerless
Trees planted to illustrate an idea, an urban born design, imprisoned there
To decorate a vista. Fashions change, now out of place, wrong timed, outmoded
No longer needed, they can only die, quietly, in the poisoned garden.
Before the axe.

And in the sky, the silent, golden in the sun, windplaning buzzard in glorious flight
Suddenly swoops

His first prey a poisoned mouse/
Food from the poisoned garden.

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