The White Bird

She glided through the slushy pile of green waste,

To an unclean barn where starved cattle lay.

She’d stretch her long neck and yellow beak,

And catch a stray worm sunbathing on a pile of hay.

She’d shake him, break him and eat him alive,

And the poor fellow is swallowed without a fight.

And then she’d catwalk towards her starving friends,

And perch on a calf mooing for its nursing right.

Her white frame positioned, her head would swoop,

Her beak would catch unsuspecting wanderers

Feasting on that dirt-skin back

She’d torture them until they surrendered.

The calf would stop mooing and shake his rear,

White Bird would flap her wings and raise her head.

Her cry of triumph would rise amidst cattle wails:

I’m here to help you, my friend, she said.

She’d stride past a brood of chicks chasing Mother Hen,

Red, brown, orange, grey would squeak with fear.

She wouldn’t harm them, though, as she advanced,

Her target was that well-nourished worm caught by Mother Dear.

White Bird would face her opponent with challenging grace,

I live here; she tells her, my cattle, my field.

Mother Dear, without a quaver, returns to her feed,

You can be Queen Bee, but I will not yield.

I watch White Bird as she bathes in an open-ground well.

A little plastic, a wooden stick floats by,

She sips from the pool of debris like it were a spring,

And then her head would tuck in her wing with a sigh.

I wonder what White Bird is doing these days?

I can’t see her now; my white wall mounts high.

I miss her proud gait and elegant presence,

But it’s peaceful out there— no cattle cry.