HADIDAH-IBIS (FREE VERSE SONNET)

Your body gleams a deeper purple and green-bronze
where with your beak you peck up snails and earthworms
before the backyard buzz as you screech shrilly,
and the afternoon rest is disturbed in a mere moment
when the two Jack Russell’s do suddenly find you
where the sparks of the sun jump as your wings slap,
as you depart angrily in a northern direction,
while both dogs jump and try to bite you
and later when the dogs lie and peer at their food-bowels
the late afternoon drags past to twilight,
the tranquillity is restored while doves coo in the old oak tree
and the residents do not know about you as they come home
and this commotion of your atonal scold-language
is repeated day upon day in the backyard.

Gert Strydom
Publicado en RavenCageZine30