The Birds with their Wings
Clipped are Wrecked Angels²
The Birds are in Misery – they do
Not Sing: they just Screech in Pain³
Sore must be the Storm, that could Abash
The little Bird – that keeps so many Warm⁴
I find every Sparrow God Forgets to watch over⁵
The Petrified Birds sit in their Petrified Nests and
Hatch their Petrified Young from Petrified Eggs⁶
Who can comprehend the Bewilderment
Of the Last Bird in a Blazing Forest?⁷
The two Breathless Gannets found
Covered in Oil are not unlike you⁸
He who shall Hurt the little Wren
Shall Never be Belovd by men⁹
Morning comes – Without a
Single Bird to Sing about it¹⁰
¹ Paul Éluard tr. Gilbert Bowen, November 1936
² Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
³ Werner Herzog
⁴ Emily Dickinson, Hope Is the Thing
⁵ Roger Reeves, Self-Portrait as Ernestine “Tiny” Davis
⁶ Carl Sandburg, They Have Yarns
⁷ Muhammad al-As’ad tr. May Jayyusi & Jack Collom, Singers
⁸ Joanna Klink, The Old Vandals were Floods and Boats
⁹ William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
¹⁰ C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy