Poems by Ruby Shifrin
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Willow Beauty (Peribatodes rhomboidaria)
by Ruby Shifrin
From Canary Spring 2024
Ruby lives near rivers and flood meadows, predominantly an urban environment. But fox bark and owl hoot can still be heard above traffic.
Some say cherish the grief, eat it into you,
like the caterpillar savors Alder, Hawthorn,
Honeysuckle leaves. When it has filled up
and fed on all these greens, slivered memories
of brighter spring days, spun and hung in chrysalis,
it opens wings into the Willow Beauty moth.
Much of the day it rests on tree trunks.
You may not even notice its brown-grey wings,
their delicate central cross-line markings,
indistinguishable against the bark of Birches,
unless some breeze from the past causes them to ripple.
At night it seeks out Creeping Thistle and Ragwort.
It always flies towards any light held in your hand, or heart.
It transforms beyond dream in your mind, as you seek out
the dark garden, the emptied street, willing the moth
to find its soft rest on you, settle into the murmur of comfort,
of permanence. But that is not its habit.
Always it flits away, then fluttering, returns,
antennae always feathering the shadow.
© Ruby Shifrin
Wren
by Ruby Shifrin
From Canary Spring 2024
The rains have been heavy.
I watched the river rise,
inching up night and day,
flooding fields and streets.
I wondered about horses, houses
and safety, but not an uncovered
trash-can now full of rain
in which, possibly blown
by the minor hurricane
of the day before, the Wren drowned.
Not a fluffy chick,
so it didn’t skitter off the shed
roof—was it sipping a last drink?
Dead all the same—
its scimitar beak stiff,
eyes open but jellied,
legs stretched behind, stuck
in a final push for the trash-can rim.
It was already all over, that fawn
and chestnut brown flecked tail—
fanned like a hand of playing cards
already played.
Soaked, no air left under feathers
too heavy to beat and lift away.
I doubt the Wren pondered its fate
but strived, writhing through the water,
to live, until it didn’t, like all Wrens,
not wasting time on regret.
© Ruby Shifrin