A thief is sauntering down the road with his catch, a beautiful copy of Magpie’s new CD, Six Feet on Solid Ground. He runs into a merchant at a milestone near the village. He hails the merchant who invites him to stay with her at the Inn. The thief quickly apologizes for his lack of money and the merchant says, “it’s on my dime, I just happen to be rich.”

Later that night while they’re sitting at a table, the thief is loosening up. The merchant’s got him drunk. The musicians in the bar are playing a tune. The singer sings the lyrics in a mystifying way… like this:

Child of the other sun,
how latent pass the blossoms
of our hearts as thieves
bristle their leaves,
how late the speaker turns the thorn.

And now as yellow forelimbs fall,
their voided caskets irritate the sparrow –
like you, to whom no thistle
rises in the bread.

And when my heart swings gently,
avoiding the price it leaves there,
glowing so coldly without a name,

this egret of a stone-stiff back –
one feather, it winters no number.

Eventually the thief admits to being a thief. The merchant nods, and slowly begins to unravel this story:

“We’ve all stolen something in this life,” the merchant says, “and we’ve all been stolen from, for sure. But what shiny trinket do we escape with, onto what wet black bough* where no one can reach it – and into what tender region of the conscience does its shadow grow, and remain there burrowed, without us being aware?

“But we as thieves, as well as the thieved, look up at this branch, and according to that pitch in our hearts, the sinking of our gut into a trench – clearly have some vendetta to lay upon ourselves, upon the world who has wronged us. Just as the magpie picks at its new possession, taunting us until it flits away, out of sight, we ask first, “where is its nest?” And then we ask who is to blame. And then our life crumbles around us, like our friendships, our relationships, and our peace of mind, as we set out on this hunt to retrieve our stolen artifact.

“But what is it in this stolen object – other than its tangible absence, as felt in our empty hands, the hollow it leaves in our hearts, and the trench where it leaves our guts – that can inflict such doubt, as to the groundedness of all things?”

The merchant tilts her glass and the thief sits up.

“Is it not the object but the magpie itself, who impinges such dark magic upon us, like a mage? Because, while we can still see it, the object, flashing with light at the magpie’s feet – while they’re up there in the tree, picking at it – it seems that he or she is toying with us, this bird – is taunting us, with something more absurd: the notion that somehow we, the thieved, can’t do without. And we the thieves, as well as the thieved; no?

“For certainly, our hearts have taken something from it every day – from this beauty, this dark magic – some bright secret. It lifts from us the weight of the absolute – if only for a moment; and what it lifts from us is not ours to keep, nor lose – that which, even as we seek it, remains there tethered, rooted in us, like – what? – some good, perhaps, some hope. Otherwise we might be killers.”

The thief listens carefully.

“But the magpie is not murderous; even as a murder of ravens only flock around the dead, and the dying, they have no part in killing. The magpie is the cause of murder, don’t you see? It is the manifestation of our need to blame others for our loss, the need to strike out, the flashing of brilliance in the killer's eye. That's what the magpie has taught us.

“Now go listen to this music on the CD you have stolen from me, and I promise not to kill you. I must move on with my life.”

The merchant stands up to go, but pauses. The thief is shocked, and gestures to her. The merchant gestures to him, resigned, and walks away.

*The phrase “wet black bough” is stolen from an
Ezra Pound poem, titled “In a Station of the Metro.”