A wonderful bird is the Pelican, Its beak can hold more than its belly ...

Leaving
by Olivia Bell
The trees have pulsing veins,
heartbeats that shiver in the ice,
pounding gasping breaths;
I never knew it was so loud.
I am leaving.
The leaves, twisted rags, know it.
There is an anticipation, deadened by the heavy fog
that almost sings.
I am leaving, and the clouds know it.
They batter together in a frenzied war-cry
and the rotten cadavers of robins and eagles circle over
as if in macabre suspense for the carrion to come.
No song tears from their scorched beaks
because they, like me, like grief and like the world
have simply run out of words.
The door stands half-shut in disgust, the knocker
turned away from my hand in disgrace.
I am leaving, and the rusted handles share my shame.
The last look back reveals something else:
a shadow, swallowing the house,
the clichéd swell of suffocation
that shouldn’t have been a surprise.
I am leaving, and even the sky is crying
blunt, salted drops,
frozen, like me.
the wonderful bird Ardingly College 2010
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