A Sunny and Happy Day

A sunny and happy day and I go
to the local shop to buy something
for lunch and crouching by a wall
a young pigeon attacked by some predator
is cowering its wing bloodied and torn
its neck raw and bleeding
but I don’t know what to do about it so
I do nothing and a little further along
two youths are in a bus shelter and
one of them is punching the bus shelter
but I don’t have anything futile to say here
about punching a bus shelter and
in the shop one of the staff is busy
putting reduced price labels on food
she says it’s better to sell it cheap
than throw it away unsold and I’m tempted
to say it’d be even better
to give it away but I don’t
I buy something for lunch and go home
and the bus shelter is empty
although next to it now there’s a car
with about twenty youths in it all talking
at the same time and playing loud music
(“if you can call that infernal racket music”)
and then I’m approaching the pigeon
and thinking I wonder if there’s
a pigeon rescue organisation I can phone
when at that moment a woman
comes out of an office building
with a cardboard box and some plastic bags
and rags and she’s going to rescue the pigeon
at least I hope rescue is the right word
and not “take and put out of its misery”
so I go on along home and don’t stop
to see if I can help because
I’m in a hurry to take my washing out
of the machine and hang it to dry
and to make my bed I left unmade and
to eat the lunch I’ve just bought
on this sunny and happy day.


© Martin Stannard, 2004