Partridge Season

by Brett Rutherford

At August’s end
the partridge weeps.
The hunters come
with their slobby dogs
on the morrow.

The hen who laid the egg
that hatched you,
has been taken alive.
The sire who flew
and taught you cloud-lore
and hawk-watch
hides on the branch
of a pear tree.

You watch from where
the hedge-row nest
gave shelter. Fledgling
just shorn of baby feathers,
you tremble and wait.

Giants tread back and forth
in boots that smash
all the good things beneath;
the dire hounds clench
and unclench their jaws
in practice, tails wild
with expectation.

The captive hen
is placed in a cage,
atop a tree-stump,
away from hedge-rows.

The men hide
in a thing made out
to resemble
a boxwood shrubbery,
a little green castle
brimming with
shotgun barrels.

They know the hen
will call out plaintively.
They know another male
partridge will come
a-calling, and another,
and maybe another.

They will circle the hen-cage,
they will pick at wire
and wicker, calling back
at her song of distress.

The hunters’ blind
trembles. Not yet! Not yet!
Another male arrives.
A shot! Wings fly!
More shots! The dogs
run after in howl and fury.

One hound comes back
with your uncle in his mouth,
another, your brother.

Into a sack they go.
This, they call sport.