II. Allegro molto leggiero - Ethel Smyth, Mannheim String Quartet

A Magpie
Feathered and brushed, alone and glimmered tail
Looking for bugs in the same green I’m sitting in.
He worms through the ground,
Snuffing food, shuffling in small,
Grassy hops. Daisies and thistle,
Sweet clovers on sleeping soil.
I make eye contact with him,
I know he sees me too.
He got close before instinct shot in, and he
Shuddered off. The sun is

Oblivious. They don’t care, nor do they ignore.
The blue is unawakening.
I message my girlfriend.
The company is appreciated.
A Magpie I miss flies away.

A Magpie I pray
kept a shrewd distance.
His eyes stayed set on me.

A Magpie accomplice arrives.
They purr at one another,
With small warmths between them.
They are daisily sapphic.
In search for matching glints, a spark caught in twos.
Both have beautiful feathers.

Opal feathers and the grass,
Populated by equally avious bees, flies, ants.
Sparrows crest and trough their plateau.
They swell the wildflower walls,
Spying me and simmering back.
A Magpie scours for bugs still.
A Magpie asks me
How to get home. No answer
Curves the wings, a part of the wind, so Sparrows stay
only closer to heaven.
Bees adopt foxglove homes.
Bats fuzzily sleep, on an island just off Greece.
Quiet Buzzard passes by.
I hope I’m not sitting on the best bugs. 


[Here's a link to an incredibly comprehensive anti-racist reading list. https://www.victorialynnalexander.com/antiracistresourceguide] 

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