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| grackle, expounding |
A cowbird and grackle were in disagreement
over a definition of terms.
Astride a dead sparrow, its small breast pierced,
the grackle explained this action
in terms of disbursement of seeds.
The cowbird objected, arguing that the grackle
was a cheat, ending a life
already in progress and pointed to the ashen sparrow,
non-renewable, lying still
as a stone and twice as useless.
Don't get holy with me cowbird, scoffed the grackle.
You're nothing but a flim-flam bird
and a deadbeat parent, letting the other raise your brood
by knocking the originals
out of the nest like so many shucked hulls.
Murderer! they both cried, each to the other with scorn.
The grackle strutted about,
proud and righteous, while the cowbird sang the faux
river in its throat,
that beautiful false flow from which none may drink.
I saw all this from my window, an avian stage play
with knives and subterfuge.
All day until dusk I turned over the problem of who
was in the right, but was interrupted
by a million starlings screaming for either, or both,
or just to hear their own voices in cacophony as the
weary sun gave up the yard to shadows and moonlight.
________
for Word Garden Word List--Richard Wilbur.
The cowbird leaves its eggs in other birds' nests; the hatchlings shove the parent bird's eggs out and run the parent ragged feeding the cowbird chicks who are often much larger than the bird's own chicks would have been. Also, the adult cowbird can make a sound that sounds like gurgling water. You can hear it here:
As for the grackle, they are sometimes bad neighbors at the feeder, stabbing smaller birds with their beaks or raiding other birds' nests and killing the babies. They don't always do this, but sometimes they do. I have been feeding the birds for over 20 years and there have only been one or two years when the grackles were like that, but when they are, they're relentless.
