POEM NOT ABOUT BIRDS

This poem is not about birds—
There are birds in it,
As there are in many poems,
But nothing of bird-life,
Bird intelligence, birdliness.
Birds, after all, supply their own
Song, they live and persist
In spite of humans, fly
In close-packed stanzas, and
Lead altogether poetic lives.

To use their world for morals,
Illumination, or a poetry—
Borrowed plumes perhaps—
Would be foolish... bird-brained.
If you want to use birds
Then practise living birdishly,
Let you eye be bright, steel
Enter your body, set feathers,
Defend territory, sing—
Then what need for birds?