Metaphors of freedom and metaphor in poems as well as messengers, birds bring joy to our days to day lives, especially when we are all so restricted. We’ve shared ‘flashes’ of kingfisher, oyster catchers’ calls, magnificent magpies and stories of blackbirds.
For the Birds – again Before daybreak three gulls fly inland mewling overhead; mistle thrush, blackbirds, Jenny Wren sing for crumbs and oats in my back garden; out front, high on bird feeder pinnacle cock robin monitors comings and goings: collar doves, blackcap, starlings, sparrows magpies – two for joy – dunlins, crows; willie wagtails scuttling underfoot peck whatever they can pick up. In turn, together or apart, I watch each bird take its chance. Rosy Wilson
Corvid cycle Sickle wings askew Scraping clean sky’s high contours Red kites’ mewling screams Ack-ack beaks rattling Rooks tumble into barracks Storied tree scaffold Chattering jackdaws Scatter across stubble fields Suburban scuffles Skirling smoky flocks Ruffle dusky hillside skirts Ten thousand starlings! Patrick Wilson
Photos by Paul & Anna
On Ha’Penny Hatch Hanging over rail White egret stabs At running Ravensbourne Mallards escort ducklings Steadily upstream Leaving silty streaks Four days shut up, nature deprived Breathlessness returned Willing to breathe again Paul Wilson
Under the lifting bridge Standing again on Ha’penny Hatch The day after a half century of birthdays. Green flash of kingfisher zips through and away upstream, ‘Gyptian goose squats on mid-channel rock. White egret shivers jazz feet, Disturbing silt in its singular quest for grub. Dancing, darting under the lifting bridge, I smile at the sheer energy of movement. Paul Wilson
Beckenham Lake Eye to eye with ducks In icy water, framed with autumn orange The cold glows gold in my bones My feathers are dry too Ruth Fishman
Saltee Islands as I walk, meditate along the sea wall contemplate gulls roseate terns as they swoop and turn, a flight of ducks in formation I long to dive in, swim with seals as once on the Saltees, off Kilmore Quay, we swam together, our family with theirs Rosy Wilson
Baby Blackbird All week we've heard squealing deep in the ivy Your parents flying to and fro, foraging Grubs and bugs for you and your siblings This morning they chased away a dozy wood pigeon That bumbled too near your hidden nest, So why are you cowering on dead leaves Squeezed into corner of house and fence? Worried mum fluttering around the eaves Did you jump or try to fly too early, Or is this normal fledging - taking a rest? I just looked again and you've disappeared - I hope you're safe. I would tell your parents But they seem to be missing too, and though I spend more time with them than any human, We can't really communicate - perhaps for the best. Patrick Wilson
Easter Day Rising before dawn no chorus, one blackbird sings I hug an ancient yew over calm waves three cormorants fly low oystercatchers converse Rosy Wilson
Par Avion A squirrel loops his way Along the tangle of branches And leaps tree to tree Above him the crow echoes his curve At my table, Under my anglepoise I write a letter To be posted in the red box on the corner Andrea Morreau
Art within the Cracks 