Pica Rite

Dave Jilk

When adolescents loiter in a pack
they jostle, prattle, hassle passersby
with whoops and taunts that portend pranks or worse,
and flounce or flirt in awkward courtship shows:
just so, a cheeky colony of pyes
descends upon a slope of open wood.
They cackle, sally, flap to land; with head
saccades they scan around, and twitch their tails,
and bounce, too bumptiously, along the ground.
But has this mischief been misunderstood?
More loyal than the geese—those renegades
retreat at first assault of cold—they rather
rally locally, roost communally;
more lively than the raptors—who sit tight
in trees, or nonchalantly skim the sky—
they aye will have a mission underway;
more dapper than their cousin crows—who wear
such somber monochrome, and ever seem
to have some feathers out of place—they sport
an avian evening-dress, with black tux
and tails of glossy gun-metallic blue,
a snowy vest on scapula and breast,
and contour plumage rigorously groomed.
For their cacophony commemorates,
a spritely pentecostal rite to rout
prosaic anglo-protestant affairs:
a magpie died, his comrades have turned out.

The Science

The black-billed magpie (Pica hudsonia) is native to western North America and is closely related to the Eurasian species Pica pica. Because they are common, chatter loudly, and are often seen pecking at roadkill, magpies have a somewhat louche reputation. They were historically considered an ill omen, and a modern collective noun for magpies is ‘mischief’.

In fact they are among the most intelligent of birds. They can recognise themselves in a mirror, specifically avoid people who are carrying guns, and (allegedly) mimic human speech. They land on cattle not to hassle them but rather to eat ticks and other parasitic insects. Magpies do not typically migrate in winter but rather roost in large groups. Their plumage coloration is striking, but its evolutionary value is unknown.

Ornithologists and others have described the ‘magpie funeral’, where they assemble in a group when one of them finds the body of a deceased colleague. They squawk, jump around, and pick at the body. The poem recalls an actual encounter.

The Poet

Dave Jilk is author of the epic poem Epoch: A Poetic Psy-Phi Saga, winner of the 2025 Colorado Authors League Award for Science Fiction. He has published three collections of lyric and narrative poetry, and his poems have also appeared in Expansive Poetry Online, Cathexis Northwest Press, The Society of Classical Poets, and The Avocet: A Journal of Nature Poetry. He is co-author of The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche, a Colorado Book Award finalist, and author or co-author of several published scientific papers in neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Dave earned a BSc in computer science from MIT.

Next poem: Prometheus in the Tall Grass by Teresa Nadon