Corncrake on the Path

I am following a bird whose call sounds like the scratch at the end of an album when all the songs have been played. She’s so easy to hear, so hard to see, just an ordinary blend of brown and gray feathers among brown and gray weeds. I tiptoe around, careful not to disturb her nest, and yet unsure whether she lays eggs on land or buried in some shrub with vines and prickers. Of course, that would be the safest place. Even a near-prehistoric bird on the verge of extinction must know that, and still, I step lightly. I am such a big thing. To get to this island, I crossed an ocean. I want to visit the cottage where my grandmother started us. To touch the ugly pigpen, all wattle and daub, which housed the beasts that fed her. It stands despite the rain, the value of a thing fully known when forecasts threaten to take it away.

D. Walsh Gilbert is a dual citizen of the Republic of Ireland and the United States and lives in Connecticut on a former sheep farm at the foot of Talcott Mountain, the prior lands of the Tunxis peoples to whom she gives deep gratitude and promises good stewardship. Her latest book, Snarl (Kelsay Books), was released in July 2026. Alumna of Wesleyan University, she leads a poetry workshop for members of Connecticut Poetry Society as well as a creative writing program for residents of Masonicare at Middlewoods of Farmington.