Magpie Mind

“My magpie mind collects pieces in a puzzle.”

— Eileen Berry,  p 10, Bye Bye Blackbird


“Magpies were always there in our English garden, pecking around and singling out particular objects. Beautiful black and white birds with loud calls to each other. That is the way this book was put together.”

— Eileen Berry

This collection of poetry inspires the mind and imagination with memories and images of people, places, and changes over the years. An inspired geologist who loved the earth and it's inhabitants, Eileen often spoke of the blackbirds in her garden, saying their chatter and happy activity represents the way life builds by memories of tiny events. This book reveals snippits of events in everyday life, collected from childhood into elder years, and surrounded with insight.

"Feelings are whole," she entitles a poem,
"The visual memory I piece together as I write.

The feelings are whole and it is only in writing that I

break them into pieces."

— Pam Knight, publisher/ writer/ poet