CAT

In safety, so they thought, they peck with bobbing head the bird food on the lawn while watching them a cat from underneath a shrub.

Its muscles tighten, fed with blood by its pounding heart; a flood behind an earthen wall with dynamite inside so when the plunger's struck a blow, the power's all released, and God in Heaven cannot stop the sudden, surging rush.

We are aghast, on our seat, sipping wine and nibbling treats, to see that unleashed fury leap with claws and teeth with this intent: to kill, and then to eat.

They scrabble at the air, feathers like fingers trying to grip a wall of ice with death's blood-red mouth snapping at their feet¦ and they escape, the cat's high leap, its legs outstretched, is nano seconds late.

I built a barrier around the shrub to pen that killer cat and make it safe for birds to come and peck the crumbs I leave.

And then today, the sun so bright and birdsong in the air, I saw the wreckage on the grass, feathers everywhere, and they were white but stained with red, and then I knew that sudden death - a lightning bolt - had made my lawn a killing ground, a well-fed cat to feed.