- Quails, and: Pondering Pheasant
Quails
Pliney told that migrating quails rested in such numbers on the sails of ships at night that the vessels were in danger of sinking.
—from 100 Birds and How They Got Their Names
All night our ship creaksand groans under the weight
of countless scale-belliedquails. Bad luck to shoot
them—so fifty-two mendream of drowning while
white-feathered crests sagour rigging worse than any
wave. Still, death by birdis not how we plan to go.
We pass some rot-gut winein the dark while the deck
turns slick with shit. Touchingcrosses round their necks,
those who believe side withdrunks who think they see a pink [End Page 117]
horizon, but dawn comesonly when it’s ready. Then
the sailor who sees farthestbows before the bevy of quails
rising reluctant but steadytoward their memories of stars.
Pondering Pheasant
This pheasant won’t be shotby fat men after breakfast.This pheasant’s etched in stone.But there I go again, dreamingof home, my father’s love
of pheasants—my father longgone. The stone is graniteand marks my father’s grave.All morning the crowshave behaved badly while
the pheasant’s held his wingsstretched wide, readyfor a flight that never begins.He’s been ready just twentyyears, yet his rock is showing
wear. So much for immortality.Who will save you now?mock the crows, pulling plastictulips from the ground. Notthe pheasant, bound by stone [End Page 118]
into silence. Not his brother crow,that clown, who has staked a claimto the fresh earth mound wheremy mother lies, so newly arrivedshe’s still saying her hellos. [End Page 119]
Meg Kearney is the author of two books of poems for adults, An Unkindness of Ravens and Home by Now, winner of the 2010 pen New England L. L. Winship Award, as well as two novels in verse for teens, The Secret of Me and its sequel The Girl in the Mirror. Her picture book, Trouper (Scholastic), is forthcoming. Her poetry has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s A Writer’s Almanac and has been published in myriad literary magazines and anthologies. She lives in New Hampshire and directs the Solstice mfa Program at Pine Manor College in Massachusetts.