Night Jar Poem by Mary Champion

Silently in the cool night air,
or when dawn has barely broken,
haunting the broad heath and woodland,
the arrow winged nightjar glides in,
approaching, like a mottled ghost,
in search of succulent insects.
His almost perfect camouflage
leaves him largely unobserved-
‘til that distinctive churring song
announces that he is close by


The clapping wings and eerie call
transfix the superstitious heart -
from his African winter home
to Europe, where he comes to breed -
stealing the milk from precious goats -
rendering them barren or blind.
The corpse-fowl whose song heralds death
as he flies with Odin's night hunt
harvesting souls when they are ripe
and ready for the underworld.

Bark-like plumes, the cavernous mouth
that can capture its prey in flight,
the slightly reptilian look -
have led him to suffer this fate -
the stigma of difference -
that curses all who can't conform.