A shadow followed me
From tree to tree
As I did pass
Along the woodland path.
I paused to hear
The sweet birds sing.
And thought of spring
And the passing year.
Although I forgot my shadow,
My shadow did not go.
For our sweet birdsong
Does not last long.
On a chilly winter’s night
The song of a bird
I heard
As he sang to me
From a churchyard tree.
Such delight,
And poignancy.
But that was in me.
Below are 2 slightly different versions of a poem I composed earlier today.
—
A bird on the wing
Is such a temporary thing.
Though, when it dies,
In poetry, it survives.
—
A bird on the wing
Is such a temporary thing.
Though, when it dies,
It’s poem may survive.
I drink my wine,
As evening gently falls.
And listen to bird calls.
Their poetry, far surpasses mine.
She said to me
Yesterday, that she
Does not like to see
The rain.
On my way
Through the park yesterday
Slow droplets of rain
Fell from the trees,
And I heard
Birds sing.
How strange it is to me
That she should see
No beauty in these
Rain, and birds, and trees.
How sweet and sad was the bird
I heard
As I stood at my open window.
When I go
To the pub to meet my friends,
We will pretend
That there is no end,
Or at least hide for a while
In the smile
Produced by drink,
Which makes men think
That all,
This will last.
But, I shall recollect the bird’s call,
As I stood at my open window
And know
That all
That sings, must pass.
I
Would rather die
In this darkening park,
While
Evening birds sing,
Than in some sterile
Hospital wing,
Where drugs oblivion bring,
And no birds sing.
—
Having written the last line, I am reminded that I owe a huge debt to John Keats, “La Belle Dame sans Merci”, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44475/la-belle-dame-sans-merci-a-ballad).
The last 2 lines of the first stanza of Keat’s poem read:
“The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing”.
While the last stanza of the poem runs thus:
“And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing”.
When I heard
A bird
In a tree
Sing to me
In a park,
I thought that the dark
Imaginings I see,
May not come to be
This video was taken by my friend Shanelle by my window earlier this evening.
As permanent as the grass
I pass
Or the birds that sing,
Is this thing
I am,
Merely man.
