The Pheasant

Orchard and garden clutch the shoal

Of fog that crowds and overwhelms.

The proud cock pheasant takes his stroll.

He surfs his wings by the dwarf elms.

He struts the mud with arching throat

To peer through what is closing in.

He blasts the wall-a double note

That makes the echoes ring again.

The drawn world sweats in murk; it has

A wave that turns the woodlands pale.

The raindrops tap on soggy grass,

And on the pheasant's glossy tail.

The pheasant strides a garden nook,

Parting what dampens every feather.

The house looms near. He wants to look

At what has shut the air together.

His fears like paths have been erased

On the wet floor where nothing shows.

The sky of fog is to his taste,

And none dares dream of what he knows.

Daniel Smythe