Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

THE ITINERARIES WHICH BIRDS follow when they migrate, southwards or northwards, in autumn or in spring, rarely pass over towns. The flocks cut the woods, now they seem to be following the sinuous line of a river or the furrow of a valley, now the invisible paths of the wind. But they swing Out in a wide curve as soon as the rows of roofs indicating a town loom up ahead.

     However, a flight of autumn woodcock did once appear in the strip of sky above a street. And no-one noticed them but Marcovaldo, who always went along with his nose in the air. He was riding a delivery tricycle, and when he saw the birds he pedalled harder, as though chasing them, carried away by the daydream of being a hunter, although he had never handled any gun but a soldier’s.

     Riding along like this, with his eyes on the flying birds, he found himself at a crossroads, with the lights at red, among all the cars, and he was within a hairsbreadth of being knocked down. While a purple-faced policeman was taking down his name and address in a notebook, Marcovaldo was still searching with his eyes for those wings in the sky, but they had vanished.

     In the firm, the fine aroused harsh reproaches.

     “You know what traffic lights are, don’t you?” the foreman shouted at him. “What were you looking at, you nit?’

     “I was looking at a flock of woodcock,” said Marcovaldo.

     “What?’ cried the foreman, who was an old huntsman, and his eyes lit up. And Marcovaldo told him all about It.

     “On Saturday I”ll take a dog and a gun” said the foreman, full of enthusiasm, his anger quite forgotten. “They’ve started firing at the migrating birds from the hill. That must have been a flock that was scared by the guns up there and veered towards the town.”

     All that day Marcovaldo’s brain ground away, ground away like a mill. “If the hill is full of huntsmen on Saturday, as seems likely, who knows how many woodcock will fall in the town; if I’m smart I’ll be eating roast woodcock on Sunday.”

     The apartment house in which Marcovaldo lived had a flat roof with wires for hanging out the washing to dry. Marcovaldo went up there with two of his sons, carrying a can of bird-lime, a brush and a sack of maize. While the children scattered grains of maize everywhere, he painted the railings, the wires and the cornices of the chimney stacks with bird-lime. He put so much on that Michelino, the youngest, nearly got stuck fast while he was playing.

     That night Marcovaldo dreamed that the roof was covered with woodocock struggling in the bird-lime. His wife, more greedy and lazy, dreamed of already roasted ducks placed on the chimney stacks. His daughter, who was romantic, dreamed of humming birds with which to adorn her hat. Michelino dreamed of finding a stork.

     Next day, every hour, one of the children went to inspect the roof, merely poking his head out through the skylight, so as not to frighten the birds away if they were just alighting, and then coming down again with the news. The news was never good. Until, towards midday, Paolino came back shouting “They’re there, Daddy. Come on!”

     Marcovaldo went up with a sack. Stuck in the bird-lime was a poor pigeon, one of those grey urban pigeons used to crowds and the uproar of the squares. Fluttering around, other pigeons were watching it sadly as it tried to free Its wings from the sticky mush on which it had unwisely rested them.

     The Marcovaldo family were just stripping the flesh from the tiny bones of this thin and stringy roast pigeon, when there was a knock at the door.

     It was the landlady’s maid, who said: “The Signora wants to see you! Come immediately!”

     Very worried, because he was six months behind with the rent and was afraid of being thrown out, Marcovaldo went to the land lady’s flat on the first floor. No sooner had he entered the drawing-room than he saw that there was already one visitor: the policeman with the purple face.

     “Come in, Marcovaldo,” said the landlady. “I’ve been told that someone is hunting the municipal pigeons on our roof. Do you know anything about it?”

     Marcovaldo felt his blood run cold.

     “Signora! Signora!” a woman’s voice cried at that moment.

     “What is it, Teresa?”

     The washerwoman came in. “I went to hang the washing out on the roof and it all stuck to the line. I tried to pull it off, but it tore! It’s all ruined! Whatever can it be?”

     Marcovaldo ran his hand over his stomach, as though he was having difficulty in digesting something.

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