Just contemplating natures life cycle of the food chain. One moment there is peace and tranquility. Then it may be interrupted by sudden violence. You never know.

The bird in this picture is an interesting fellow. It is a Cowbird. From a distance it looks like a common crow, but is distinguishable by its brown feathered head. It is considered a parasitic species. It eats insects stirred up by herds of large animals when they migrate or forage, such as cows or bison. Since it must follow the herds, it doesn't have time to lay its eggs and incubate them. So, it lays its eggs in another bird's nest, to let the unsuspecting mother raise the Cowbird young along with her own. It's definately not into parenting. It only cares about selfishly feeding and breeding itself. I guess that's why I chose it to be eaten in this poem.

This poem is written in Sapphic Stanzas.
The Sapphic Verse dates back to ancient Greece and is named for the poet Sappho. Sapphics are made up of four-line stanzas with three long lines, frequently of 11 syllables, followed by a short line of typically 5 syllables. The main building blocks of the sapphic are trochees and dactyls. The trochee is a metrical foot with one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one, while the dactyl contains a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones. The first three lines of the sapphic contain two trochees, a dactyl, and then two more trochees (making 11 syllables). The shorter fourth, and final, line of the stanza is called an "Adonic" and is composed of one dactyl followed by a trochee (making 5 syllables). However, there is some flexibility with the form as when two stressed syllables replace both the second and last foot of each line. Any number of stanzas can be written. The lines are unrhymed.

I must admit that I find long poems without rhyme less satisfying to me, and harder to write, because I naturally tend to rhyme. However, that is the requirement for this format. The form does lend itself well to story telling. I hope you like this one.

This photograph was taken by the author in July, 2014, at a park along the Mississippi in South St. Paul.

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