Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “The Kildeer Chick” by Richard Owen, part of our 2024 Poem in Your Pocket Day collection!

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The Kildeer Chick

by Richard Owen

Each time we drive our grassy road, the kildeer tries

To lead us from her nearby nest. She drags her wing

And calls. She’s easy prey, we could not resist

If we were fox or badger. As it is,

We are a monstrous iron thing, a truck

That goes its way unthinking, unaware.

I saw a movement and I stopped, got out. Beside the wheel

A tiny bit of fluff, so close it should be crushed.

I picked it up, and it was live in my hands,

I put it down. It ran towards mother’s desperate cries.

A tiny bit of grace it was. For once,

The beauty of the world

Was spared from us.

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Richard Owen is a retired lawyer living in Fredericton , New Brunswick. He writes poetry and fiction. His story, “The Barn Owl”, was shortlisted for the Peter Hinchcliffe Short Fiction Award, and published in The New Quarterly. Our relationship with nature is a recurring theme in his work.

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