I want a protocol for the end

of Eurasian Starlings – clipped tones,

pronouncements and on the grouse moors

well-cured skins should hang at half mast,

raptors heads on poles, game-keepers 

bowing capped heads to the rattling 

gunfire of magpies. she had no choice,

There’s certainty in this. was the last

of her kind It feels just like lockdown,

the foxes louder than usual, deer edging 

towards my garden again.

Drones give us a bird’s eye view

of people casting flowers in their millions

(no plastic please), the shadow of a buzzard

skims empty motorways, announcers

tell us at this great loss we should stop,

think and wonder. I try to read the tilt

of a jackdaw’s head in the hope that 

eye-pearls and iridescence of 

blue-black wings will tell me 

what should be mourned, what saved.

Header Image Credit: Neil Thomson