The Morning Magpie

Magpie

The magpie's mood is never surly
every morning, wakening early,
he gargles music in his throat,
the liquid scrabble of his throat.

Its silver stridencies of sound,
the bright confusions and the round
bell-cadences are pealed
over the frosty, half-ploughed field.

Then swooping down self confidently
from the fence-post or the tree,
he swaggers in pied feather coat,
and slips the fat worms down his throat.

-James McAuley