POEM OF THE MONTH

October's poem of the month was performed as part of National Poetry Day (October 4) which had Journeys as its theme, in Hunstanton Library, Norfolk, to an audience of schoolchildren, poetry diehards and the library public in an event featured on Radio Norfolk.

Bird Song

Somewhere beyond those pitching treetops
And dizzy roofs and towers,
Distant mountains and wild blue seas,
In a heaven of grub and flowers
Is home. But these eyes won't spy it.
Though I've brooded on wingspan, wind and waves,
Density, distance, directions,
Hoarded and waited, cracked tiny brains
On pressure guage, plotting and preparations,
I still haven't learned how to fly.

Breezily gullible, I'd always believed
It would flow as freely as my fantasies:
Heoric escape into pure, hawkish heights,
Soft-hearted lovey-dovey airs, mercy flights,
An enriching, elevating experience, they said,
Be upright, self-supporting, lofty.... and dead.

Edge of the nest. In a flap. (Afraid).
But had to escape from Mother.
Squawk squawk squawk. No room. Need air.
Then - Mummy, it's giddy up here.
My heart flutters, sinks - lacking dawn to life
My petrified beak in a song-throat's soaring.
I'm sorry I ruffled your feathers, Mum.
Please take me back under your wing.

Sun breaks in. "Rise up. Follow me.
Don't freeze for a moment to think of The Fall,
That you're wing-clipped, that really there is No Way;
That miles from Nowhere Else, alone,
You'll end as some ground-snaking evil's prey;
Take it. Before your brain even twigs.
That leap in the dark of faith, or death,
That flight from your nestling worm of doubt,
Into this screaming cloud of breath."

© Gareth Calway 1991
First published in Coming Home (King of Hearts Publications, 1991)