The Mark of Love

He sits in my bleak cold garden

perched lordly on the old oak table.

He does not move but stares unblinking,

not asking but demanding more

of the flame raisins he has found

in the cracked old Japanese bowl.

I watch him as he cocks his head

turning from one side to the other,

the dark eyes intelligent and sharp

reminding me of the rare talents

and avian persistence lodged

in this small being of brown and red.

“I am the little bird” he says,

“who, come the Spring, pours out his song

like a nightingale in the hedgerow

singing beneath the silver moon,

rich notes ringing through the warm night

to summon my love back to our nest.

“But once I flew into a cold stable

where a swaddled new born baby lay.

Ox and donkey slept soundly there, 

while the baby shivered in his bed

and his mother stretched out her soft hand

to caress my brown feathered coat.

‘Bird’ she said, ‘can you rebuild the fire?

For the night is icy and I fear

for my baby so helpless and so young.’

I flapped my wings like small bellows

and sang to her until the flames

leaped like fiery darts into the sky

“Consumed with a rare love for the child,

too close I went to the roaring fire

and the dull brown feathers of my coat

smouldered blood red bright in the darkness.

But the boy smiled in a deep sleep

and his mother offered me her thanks.

“She looked tenderly at my burned

feathers, and blessed me with a kiss

to set as a seal upon my heart.

I have fought for my territory,

and beak stabbed my feathered brothers

but still I carry the Lady’s mark of love.”

I remember now his constant harrying 

of the hungry Blue Tits, but how

can I resist those pleading eyes?

So I fill up the old bowl with fruit.

and, as he sits beside me to take it,

‘God bless you my little Red Breast’ I pray.

                                               Naomi