deep south 2013
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dsj poetry
Marabou Stork
Carries his voice in a purse
clutched under his chin. Hunches
against distant thunder, rain
on the Masai Mara, a frock coat
on stilts, waiting for news
of the dead. A tree lifting into mid-air
is a dozen or more of them,
unbolting themselves
from the branches. Will hover
for hours above carrion
until lions are bloated, belching off
into the dusk; or loiter, the fringe
of a bush fire, as small scurries of feather
and fur leap safe from the flame,
to be snatched up and gobbled instead.
Cast out, snickered at by other,
brighter plumes, but never face
to face: the balding, blood-scabbed
head; the great blade of his bill
ready to cleave muscle and sinew,
to tear out a still-pumping heart
as night-time spreads its wings,
a darkness roosting
at the edge of dreams
or in the corner of a cage,
unrepentant as the day-trippers
pause to gape, and then move on
away from that steadfast
baleful stare, those eyes feasting
on the baby dozing in his pram.
John O'Donnell's work has received various awards, including the Irish National Poetry Prize, the Ireland Funds Prize, the Hennessy Award for Poetry and, most recently, the Hennessy Award for Fiction. A senior counsel living and working in Dublin, he has published two collections of poetry; a third collection, On Water, is forthcoming from Dedalus Press in 2014
