birds – Aliosha Pittaka Bielenberg

This poem complements an essay I published in Taxis called “Who Remembers Paliomylos? From the Troodos Mountains of Cyprus.”

"T'aidonia de s'afinoune na koimetheis stis Platres."
                                                                                                — Giorgos Seferis, "Helen".

         Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
                Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
                        In the next valley-glades:
         Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
                                                                                               — John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale".

What do nightingales think
of symbolism?

Silver light fills the valley
The fresh evening air resounding
With the nightingale's song.

My heart opens, my mind fills
With memories of light:

The fireplace, the Christmas tree
The morning sun, the evening moon
The comet, the stars, the milky cloud
Etched like frosted glass
On a clear summer's night.

In the morning, the hammers pound.
The voices of neighbors float
From orchards to verandas.

The birds bide their time
Until winter rains
and residents retreat.

Life after life.

A sparrow is a domestic alien:
Its thoughts are not betrayed in its mien.
The place of its inscrutable soul
Is not in the chirrups I hear;
Nor in the birds feeding around the bowl
That flock together but scatter when I near;
Nor in the incessant chatter of these omnivores
That makes observing them, to me, something of a chore.

And yet, in communing, we find common
Sense in what we might dismiss as solemn.
Breaking bread, sharing food: a sacral act
That smacks of incense and insincerity.
Yet sitting at a table, exercising common tact,
Is how we make a world from commensality.

Tag: birds

Nightingales

A sparrow is a domestic alien