A vicious little robin,
having spent his autumn
brooding and plotting
against the spruce rosebush
just out of his bounds
in the garden’s far corner
sticks out his chest and preens.
Suddenly in the deep midwinter
he whistles shrill
to call in his magpies.
Cackling they come,
fed fat on his titbits
and half-baked myths,
swooping and pecking,
clawing and picking
at every thorn and twig.
By day and night,
he watches from
the highest fencepost,
having long cast aside
his less hawkish friends
like unwanted summer chicks,
a keen, mean eye
on the falling petals.
But the stubborn rosebush,
tattered and shredded,
neither bows nor breaks
but instead stands straight,
its sturdy stem a finger
pointing out the blood
on the robin’s red breast.
How long before the hawks
or a lone magpie,
long grown hungered,
notice how very small
the little robin stands
and execute a swoop of their own?
Harry Gallagher
