The Flight of Birds
“a poem should be wordless
as the flight of birds.”
—Archibald Macleish, Ars Poetica.
birds don’t sing in their flight
for them flying is a muse
they compose mid-air
weave agnostic verse
sneering haughtily at our absurdity
as they float over our meaningless mosques and churches
and those patrolled international borders
and other disputed sites
where the guns go bang bang bang all the time
they swing over there losing their birdegos
(ego is difficult to retain in mid-flight)
wondering about and watching men plucking out
and quashing the lives of other men and women and
poor helpless children and they
shed a birdtear or two from there
a birdtear that is lost midway due to heat of some explosion
down below some crazy fanatical bomb detonating
killing instantly the people and the city and the forests
and even the pitiable babybirds who are yet to learn to fly
they contemplate of writing poems
about a bird’s egg charring
before even being boiled and scratch their beaks
unsure if this is a metaphor or simile or other poetic device
o the birds have lots and lots and lots to write about
o their writings will never be banned
they borrow freedom
to write poems in the sky
they come back and
pass it on to us
we take the song only
brutally
but at least we take the song
to take the poem
to unscramble the words from the song and to put it back again
as song so spontaneously that it remains the poem and the song
to remember forever this refrain whose melody haunts us
and to hum that refrain which preserves our sanity
perhaps we need to fly
a trifle aimlessly like birds
or because we are humans
[...] Read more
poem by Meena Kandasamy
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
