Grackles: Another Early College Poem

GRACKLES

 

Emptied by summer, the parking lot

Shimmered like silver, scoured by rain,

Flared to gray fire under the early sun.

I saw grackles wading in disdain

 

Of the wet ground, pecking the grass

That grew in a fringe. The fronds

Waved above water in the morning wind,

Speckling with dew the rain-fed ponds.

 

Drawn by the nightly rain, snails crawled,

Salting the dark pavement with ghostly white.

The grackles watched sideways with fly-green eyes,

Then snapped at their shells with delight.

 

I left the grackles sporting there,

Playing, the free lords of the day.

I sighed, bent down, took up my books,

And, slavelike, heavy, went my way.

Notes

Why grackles? I think mainly because I liked saying 'grackle.' It seems I had only recently discovered the technical name of these 'black birds,' and their ubiquity and commonness put them on a par with sparrows as symbols of the everyday struggle to survive. I was waiting for a shuttlebus at the college parking lot, a rather dreary and interminable process.