RUFFED GROUSE
            Robert Cording
                p. 1991
==========================

It was beautiful,
A death I could look at,
No signs of blood or struggle
Or the starving grip of long disease.
Each feather was immaculate;
Each color true. Grays, blacks
Creams and browns; heart-shaped
Markings of yellowy-white;
Bars of sepia and burnt umber
That changed the lidless glaze of death.

I took notes: the tail that became
A diamond-shaped fan;
The Elizabethan collar
That could be raised around the neck;
And the wings, cinnamon-colored,
Which opened like memory
On all those times when,
In a whirlwind of concealment,
They'd whirred and I'd been left behind
In an instant--the blundering human,
Breathless, heart pounding, open-mouthed.

It was a death I could hold
Against the moment when its neck
Must have snapped on the chain-link fence
It lay near. I held it
As Audubon must have held his birds
To paint them.
So well-drawn and colored, his birds
Give the impression of being
Alive, natural,

Though the more you look, the more
You see how perfectly the birds were
Posed. To fit
The great blue heron life-size
On the page, he curved
The neck gracefully
So that its bill almost touched
The feet, which seemed to rise up
To meet it--a picture so stunning you forget
The wire that fixed the neck.


========

** contributory thanks to Sam Droege **

========
========