The scene was a canvas autumnal

Beyond the crimson and gold,

The swirl of the dead leaves so pitiful,

Life’s paucity there to behold;

When adding itself to the monochrome

Of the blacks and whites and the greys

Came hopping along a lone magpie,

Out of the mist and the haze;

Hopping along, hopping along, the way that they usually would,

Every bit the thief we expect and, as like as not, up to no good.

It bounded its way to the feeder post

Where blue tits and chaffinches fed,

A bully among the little kids;

The smaller birds startled and fled;

He watches them dart to the hedgerows,

For there lies the chance of a meal

By taking the eggs of the garden birds

From nests they tried to conceal;

Taking the eggs, breaking the eggs, as horror unfurls on the lawn,

The mother bird watches its child being killed, eaten before it was born.

Just then a shard of a sunbeam teems

Its warmth to the grass and the soil,

The magpie’s new irridescence shows

The colours of water and oil;

The sunlight reveals a different hue -

Touches of blue and of green,

Just being itself as God made it -

A brilliance under its sheen;

Being itself, being itself, with qualities subtle and blurred,

Killing as nature intended it to, oh beautiful, beautiful bird.