Micah Magpie | Micah wonders why are we here? | Poems in Pen

Being a magpie is fun. And flappy. But Micah just has one question: what on earth are we all doing here in the first place?
Micah magpie didn’t quite
Feel the same as magpies might;
Yes, he did like shiny stuff,
And sure he hopped, and flapped enough,
But other magpies seemed to him
To be caught up in little things:
What nest to build, or gossiping.
The weather; soft twig furnishings.
Since he was magpie through and through
He sometimes did all these things too,
But still, for him, a central question
Stalked his thoughts and plain perplexed him:
Just what are we doing here?
What is this thing, this blue-green sphere,
This doing, being, days, and nights,
This changing, moving, thing called ‘life’?
It couldn’t be that no one knew
(Perhaps he’d missed a class at school?)
So Micah Magpie set about
To ask some folk, and work it out.
The problem was that every bird
Felt differently about the world,
And all the reasons that they’d thought of
Seemed too sketchy, somewhat sort-of.
For starters, Micah’s brother Luke,
Said it all was one big fluke;
‘But what made flukes?’ said Micah then,
And Luke said that it all depends.
His sister Maya - off to church -
Said a god ruled from a perch.
‘And he made us?’ asked Micah, wowed,
‘Yes, I reckon. From the clouds?’
Daddy magpie stopped and paused,
And said how he was not quite sure;
And Mother magpie thought it best
If she steered clear of all this mess.
Well Micah Magpie swiftly knew
That no one really had a clue;
And yet the place was thrumming on
As sure as verses in a song.
So Micah went out and about
To check some other species out.
Maybe magpies have no clue,
But storks, or cranes, or cuckoos do?
First Micah asked the question to
A clever chap, a fellow who
Was famously astute and proud,
The wise and learned Pundit Owl:
“My lad, look here, there is no shortage
Of reasons for this life, supported
By thinking and investigation.
Think we don’t know? You’d be mistaken!”
Though never did he get as far,
As saying what those reasons are.
So Micah slipped away, mid-flow,
And chanced upon Big Business Crow.
“The reason we are here? It’s simple!”
Boomed the crow, strong beak all dimpled,
“Money first, chick, money last.
Get hold of that, and life’s a blast.”
Micah thought to an extent,
This wasn’t quite what he had meant:
Fame and fortune sounded nice,
But didn’t seem to explain life.
Next Micah winged into the world
To ask what normal birds had heard,
Not least the robins, tits, and geese,
Who whizzed about on Magpie Street.
Now Magpie Street was full of soul -
A bustling, busy place to go -
And any bird who’s anyone
Would go right there to get things done.
Our Micah, timid and yet shrewd
Went to ask folk what they knew:
“Excuse me!” he’d begin. “Could I…?”
But no one looked him in the eye.
“I wondered…” he attempted next,
Yet those he canvassed seemed too vexed
And busied past him on their way
To do unknown things with their day.
The baker simply pummelled dough,
And chirped: “Young bird, I do not know!”
The grocer laughed him out the shop,
“Who put you up to this? Now stop!”
And on it went. It was as if
His asking folks why they exist
Was tantamount to being rude,
To pecking tails, and throwing shoes.
So Micah thought he’d get some help
From somewhere on the library shelves,
And dusted off some big non-fiction
To review the contradictions.
But - oh! - when Micah tried to read
He soon found he was half asleep.
The words were long and complicated;
Left his magpie mind deflated.
He tried - but failed - to get his beak
Round Vedanta and Ancient Greek.
Theology was just the same:
Birdie gook in all but name.
The last tome sounded even worse:
The Cosmos For Beginner Birds.
But Micah, mostly undeterred,
Flipped the book and skimmed the blurb.
It read: “Did you know that you
Live on the Earth, lassoed by a moon,
And both these are huge circular rocks,
Spinning, churning with the rhythm of clocks.
You can’t feel it. Since forces we can’t see
Keep us stayed on the ground and motion-sick free,
And bigger than Earth, and all of the rest,
A space - full of planets - holds us like a great nest.”
Well, Micah’s magpie mind was blown:
Was full of floating stars and globes;
A universe of twigs and feathers
Ever expanding, onwards, forever.
And yet, in the middle of all that,
The swirling space and incalculable maths,
Micah slumped right back and sighed:
“But still I don’t understand why?”
He stepped outside. He’d never know.
And shoulders slumped, meandered home.
The fact of the matter was life was afoot:
Was buzzing and whirling and chirpy and… good.
Birdies were busy and birdies were glad,
And if this was the case then it wasn’t too bad.
So he flit through the town, eyes newly wide,
Marvelling at myriad avian lives.
He browsed the shop windows, and bought a nice snack,
Even joined an impromptu game of tag,
And - it’s funny - but there somewhere dashing for cover,
Clean forgot what it was he’d been trying to discover.