The Bakbakiri (Or Bush-Shrike) Poem by Gert Strydom

In my garden one-day while a sprinkler did spray the grass
on a rock right adjacent to the spray while a breeze with leaves did pass
a bakbakiri was enchanting its mate trying its utmost to prove
the depth, the expanse and sincerity of its love
where it did gambol to her in a twittering fluttering slow flight
while she did sing out her heart's utter delight
as he was dancing, prancing in a mad enchanting trod
with his small head did up and down and to and fro nod
his green wings did whirl, flap and flutter with the utmost skill
and dancing along she did the perfect picture fill.

Upon another day I found their nest a bowled cup of twigs up in a tree
and with yellow heads, throats and backs and blue legs I did that birds see
where they were eating insects, lizards, small birds and frogs
but they were shy and skulking away from my dogs

had laid red-brown blotched green-blue eggs where they waited to hatch
and to those lovely birds I had become attached.

© Gert Strydom