Pheasants
He’d been beauty-struck
as a kid by the blood-red wattles, plumed
tail feathers – their sheen
in morning sun. He’d crouch beside the shed,
waiting for the grass
to quiver, waiting for them to appear
in the near clearing,
the brazen male, the subtler female,
three bronze chicks behind.
The toolshed is history. A townhouse
with three-car garage
is history’s re-write. Knee-high grass lies
beneath the asphalt
of a tennis court. He saw pheasants here.
How stately they were –
how struck he was to hear the male’s forlorn
squawks, like sobs choked back.
He remembers how long he’d gaze, waiting
to be beauty-struck.
Shadowed shed with the hinged door, windows gone,
its roof half-collapsed,
full of old tools not much used anymore:
whipsaw, froe, adze, scythe –
gone to rust. Despite deafness, failing sight,
he hopes even so
to be beauty-struck. He’ll never again
be 12. Even so,
knowing the blond grass is gone forever,
the pheasants with it,
and the toolshed where he would stand stock still,
waiting to see them,
beauty-struck once again when they emerged
from the knee-high grass.