“Birdscaring,” Oil on canvas, March 1896, by George Clausen
The Harris Museum, Preston
Birdscaring
FitzRoy reels with the williwaws,
flapping his clapper at the crows.
Curlicues smoke his shawl--
some tied-on burlap, scrounged.
One late-winter’s hour more
will drain the sky’s last pink
and see the crows to the rooky wood
as cold seeps into his bones.
Pale smoke, pink sky, and sound,
clack-clack; clack-clack; clack-clack.
The wind and the cold are his,
It’s what they pay a boy.
His head thrown back, he cries,
G’won! G’won! G’won!
The shout becomes his song,
clack-clack; clack-clack; clack-clack.