To Quell a Mockingbird

To Quell a Mockingbird

Stephen Grimes

I wanted to be a great hunter like Nimrod,
but sometimes the river floods
and carries treasures and debris away.

The poet told me how time makes changelings,
old self into new self,
thesis, antithesis, synthesis,
friends to fiends.

A loquacious night watchman
asked if I was the man my twelve-year-
old self wanted to be; a presumptuous question—
the answer is obvious.

The hummingbird, who can’t keep a secret,
and who makes things up,
told me about the mockingbird,
how the simple and shrewd
are beguiled into his doings,
how he endeavors to reverse
metamorphosis and turn
moths into caterpillars—
easy pickings.

Some say the mockingbird
is the proudest of the birds,
how he imagines himself high
and encrusted with jewels.
But he will die like a bird.

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Stephen Grimes
Retired Lawyer & Poet

Stephen is a retired lawyer who lives with his wife Carol on twelve acres in a rural community near Birmingham, Alabama. This is his first poetry publication. 

Photography by Brian Breeden