‘Let me spell it out in words,’ the jackdaw said.
‘F of X and F inverse of x are inverse functions
If and only if F inverse of F of x equals x
and F of F inverse of x equals x.’
‘Thank you,’ I answered and tried again
to sprinkle grains of salt upon his tale.
‘He will fly a monotonic logarithmic function,’
said the jackdaw on my left. The others laughed.
‘Before he takes off, better give him unction,’
said another. With a swooping flight she graphed
the dizzy fall she estimates I’ll fly
should I leave this roof where we are congregating.
At a signal that I miss, they swarm on high.
They look back to watch me follow. They’re still waiting.
It had been there an hour, or maybe two, or six, and no one had noticed. Not that the unicorn was invisible or lurking; no one saw it because everyone knew unicorns were extinct. Except one. This one. Jack.
Jack was getting very tired. He fancied a bag of oats or better a bucket of single malt. His coat was dusty but his horn glittered brightly. SUV’s drove by.
One of the SUV’s was tarted up with ever so many off-road gadgets that its owners enjoyed showing to their neighbours and might actually use someday. It zoomed along carrying three people in fair comfort: a father reading the maps, a mother driving, and – alone in a welter of gear in the back – Cynthia.
Cynthia, not knowing what she was looking for, looked out into the dark and saw Jack.
‘Mom, Dad, a unicorn!’ is what she did not cry out.
Cynthia was not born yesterday. For all she knew the unicorn might have been, so she did not want to startle it by calling out ‘Unicorn!’ What she did shout was, ‘The bridge is out!’
Mom slammed on the brakes. Dad explored the dash the way a mole would: eyes shut, hands and nose all over the tasteful plastic and wood trim.
The SUV shuddered and stopped with its brakes squealing with the sound a unicorn makes when it can’t help laughing.
Jack laughed; he could not help it. Dad looked at Mom. Mom looked in the mirror, at Cynthia.
‘Sorry,’ said Cynthia, ‘I was dreaming I still had braces.’
The other SUV’s kept to the tarmac, speeding up to pass Mom and Dad and Cynthia in their vehicle parked mostly off the road.
‘Afraid we’ll ask for help,’ Dad said.
Mom looked at the traffic. Cynthia looked as Jack. He was really there, ten metres from the rear bumper. In the grass. In the shadows.
Standing out, thought Cynthia, with that signal horn on his brow, and with those ruddy muddy eyes. ‘Can you hear me?’ she mouthed soundlessly.
‘Of course not,’ Jack answered, ‘but I lip read. Any single malt in there, then?’
There was, actually. Bottles and bottles of single malt, one open and mostly empty. Mom said traffic frightened her too much to attack it sober.
‘Why?’ lipped Cynthia.
‘Horsepower,’ answered Jack. He laughed, not unattractively, and the ayre leaked out of the SUV’s tyres.
‘I think we’ve got a flat,’ Dad said, quick as a whelk.
‘Yes,’ Mom answered, ‘and a house in Provence. We won’t get there tonight sitting here on our berm.’
‘I’ll fix it,’ Dad said, moving as if he were about to get a move on, up tools, and open the door.
Mom, as he had hoped, beat him to it. She cleared her open window to land noisily outside. She popped the spayre tyre from the back of the SUV, looked at each wheel and squealed, ‘They’re all flat!’
The squirrel presided. Daws danced. I arrived
from what they call The Nether World: the ground.
My fear of falling balanced by my need
to hear non-human wisdom, I held tight
to budding branches. I stood on a limb.
The squirrel called for order. Jackdaws in their hundreds
flew from the church and occupied the tree.
‘A song!’ one said. They made an awful noise.
‘In Human speech,’ the squirrel said. They complied.
They told me about balance, flight, and life.
I thanked them and prepared to climb back down
and saw other humans take away my ladder.
The crows cruise by the church in close formation.
They bank in search of something I can’t see.
My years on earth, less hard to count than crows
against the sun as the flock flies by at speed,
accelerate until whole decades pass
in days through spaces that had taken years
to navigate the first time, then they’re gone.
The duck song wakes me, singing our canal
into existence, snipping bolts of dark
from the cloaks the waking duck-and-coot cabal
flew in the face of nighttime in the park.
Crows fly until the sun, touched, tips the earth
so light leaks in. Wood pigeons coo the grass.
A falcon scream creates a stream that’s worth
a trip, the other birds think, and they pass
my window in review in ones and twos.
Their songs connect canal and stream to lakes
where herons intone fish and note which choose
to dive or be the breakfast they will take.
I, also recreated by bird song,
salute the flocks and, singing, fly along.
This garden hedge can stare me down with ease.
It has more eyes, perhaps a million more
from thrush to spider and on down to spore.
They gaze at me relentlessly and seize
the thoughts that I would concentrate on you.
Each takes a bit and laughs at it until
the birds fly off and spring’s first wasps go still.
I’d write an ode but find I’m laughing too.
Come, gather with me in these closing days
when poets praise and politicians raze
what makes a human beautiful and wise.
Come, gather with me what the children’s eyes
see clearly, once each lifetime, and remember,
increasingly nostalgically, till they die,
revering till blood’s river runs towards dry
and bones creak brittle, loosening hold on sinew.
Come with me, gather. Help me find some light.
Earth Tourist 