More birds

It's hard to write much about anything at the moment. My days are pretty much filled with fetching and carrying, nursing and cleaning, wondering and worrying, rushing and remembering and then, at the last moment, trying to get time to look after myself too (when did I last brush my hair...pass). It is a bit like the early days of parenthood ('what should I do now? Why is everyone telling me what to do? How can I do what they all say? Is she still breathing? What next, what next?') but it's very different too of course. There are funny moments (most of them unrepeatable) but mostly it's just work.

So let's read someone else's words. Here is my favourite poem (so far) from Edinburgh-based poet Juliet Wilson's recent book 'Unthinkable Skies'. The poem is linked to the last post in an ornithological stylee. It's called 'Domesticated'.



Domesticated

Imprinted at birth by a human
you never learnt to be what you are.
Flightless and petted, you enjoy comforts
of home and hearth,
insulated from the harsh
rules of nature that made you.

Winter air fills with honking
geese in joyful formation
high in unthinkable sky.
You look up; an ache in your bird's brain
before waddling indoors
to be hand fed choice grain.

Later you puzzle over dreams
of endless blue and the steady beat of wings.


by
Juliet Wilson

'Unthinkable Skies' is available from its publisher Calder Wood Press.