I am getting round to reading bits of everyone's work, slowly and in particular, those who've been kind enough to make suggestions as to which pieces of their work to look at first. Any more suggestions welcome.

Cheers
Kathy

Murder in the Orchard.


They laid siege to the house for seven days,
the brooding, silent Six.
But when we looked at them
they went their separate ways
with real disdain and feigned indifference.

We knew why they had come
but chose not to reveal our hand.
They saw our fear
and seemed to understand
that we had seen right through their thin disguise.

In golden charm, they chattered, closely knit,
then stood apart and stared at us as if
in sentry duty at our gated field,
waiting to see what chance or fate would yield.

Murder was all about them
in his white and funeral black
flicking their feathered coat tails
in mock attack.

Don't let them near the children!
the young ones' father said
and we complied.
The watchers showed they didn't hear;
they lied.

Somewhere, beneath the sacred branches
of the sacrificial wood
the orchard floor was readied
for its frightened food.

Sometime on the seventh day
the Puritans must have come
and where two little chucks played
now was one.

Only brooding motherhood knew the thief
but, speechless,
could not hope to tell her grief
and none of us could know who'd be so bold.
So it's seven for nature's monstrous secret,
never to be told.