A Poem by Ingrid de Kok

Ingrid de Kok

Birds at Bellagio

Except for the undertaker-crows
sneering in sartorial black and gray
from elegant branches overhead,
the birds at Bellagio, small and large,
expect to die from gunshot wounds
on autumn afternoons.
So when Tony lifts his binoculars,
they shy from him as from a hunter,
into impenetrable green gloom,
their pewter throats sealing song
in the trussed cypresses that sightless guard
mass graveyards of Italian birds,
shot once for food, and then for sport
over three venal centuries, in peace and war.

Ingrid de Kok works at the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies, University of Cape Town. She has published 2 collections of poetry: Familiar Ground (Ravan Press, 1988) and Transfer (Snailpress, 1997); edited (with K Press) "Spring is Rebellious" (Buchu Press 1990) and was advisory editor of World Literature Today's 1996 issue "South African Literature in Transition". Her work has been published in nimerous national and international anthologies and journals, and has been translated into Italian, Japanese, French and Dutch. In 1999 she was a Rockefeller Foundation Resident Fellow in Bellagio Italy.