As I waded briskly in morning’s serenity -
the tarred road on my right
looking gritty
on my left, hedged plants sloping mild
towards the parched river bed grown all
wild -
I spied a lively robin on a furrowed
soil crest
its twitter rising from its quivering
breast
as it twitched its reddish-brown tail
in zest
calling to its mate perhaps to roost and
nest.
I tried to stifle and smother my sneeze
lest terrified, it would flee or
freeze.
I snuffed my sneeze in the nick of time.
It continued its merry cacophonous rime.
Soon I passed by it and from my sight
gone
but the chatter in my head twittered on:
A fragile blithe blob of flesh and
blood
a teeny lease of life in its body floods
snuffed finally by a vicious predator
or an invisible viral terminator
or old age wrestling it to death.
Lucky robin!
No unbridled thoughts in your head
running rife
no strangulating coiling memory maze
to fife
just a few instinctual ones of your nest,
your chicks, your haunts of food and
rest.
No draining emotions and moping
fettering feelings
a fleeting life lived purely by nature’s
coded instincts.
