-By Tyler West
The Writer’s Center congratulates Maryland-based
poet, Mark McCaig, on winning first place in the 2016 Bethesda Literary
Festival Poetry Contest. His poem, Grouse,
bridges the spectrum between life and death, animal and human, by describing an
encounter with a dead, ruffled grouse during casual evening spent with his
daughters (poem included below).
McCaig is an accomplished poet and
educator who serves the Maryland literary community as a teacher at Fairhaven
High School in Upper Marlboro, and also a writing professor at both the
University of Maryland University College and Notre Dame University of
Maryland. McCaig is also the author of the book, Like Water: The Extraordinary Approach to Education at Fairhaven School, in which he tells the story of how the
rural Maryland high school where he teaches adopted an innovative,
unconventional approach to education.
GROUSE
By Mark McCaig
Tracy's Landing, MD
First Place
The girls know the roadkill drill, hopping out
behind flashing
hazards to follow, creeping up to this hushed brown
heap.
Male ruffed grouse, I say—whiskered beak, velvet tail feathers
it once fanned, candy bar colorations circling its
broken neck.
How they stare wide-eyed at the dangle when I grab
its pinkish
feet, softly placing it in high milkweed. Late
summer apology.
My daughters and their friends say for no
apparent reason,
like teens repeat you know and like,
chirping this phrase
with such frequency they now use it for no apparent
reason. I unbuckle Colleen, then I carry her asleep
across the dark driveway. That sound as she sucks
her fore-
finger, like she does, dreaming she’s a ground bird
savoring
sweet grubs, drumming her wing, then listening to
forest
twilight. In my arms again she settles, a dead
weight.
No comments:
Post a Comment