You said you would kill it this morning. <br />Do not kill it. It startles me still, <br />The jut of that odd, dark head, pacing <br /> <br />Through the uncut grass on the elm's hill. <br />It is something to own a pheasant, <br />Or just to be visited at all. <br /> <br />I am not mystical: it isn't <br />As if I thought it had a spirit. <br />It is simply in its element. <br /> <br />That gives it a kingliness, a right. <br />The print of its big foot last winter, <br />The trail-track, on the snow in our court <br /> <br />The wonder of it, in that pallor, <br />Through crosshatch of sparrow and starling. <br />Is it its rareness, then? It is rare. <br /> <br />But a dozen would be worth having, <br />A hundred, on that hill-green and red, <br />Crossing and recrossing: a fine thing! <br /> <br />It is such a good shape, so vivid. <br />It's a little cornucopia. <br />It unclaps, brown as a leaf, and loud, <br /> <br />Settles in the elm, and is easy. <br />It was sunning in the narcissi. <br />I trespass stupidly. Let be, let be.<br /><br />Sylvia Plath<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/pheasant-3/
