Shadow Stands Up #15

It seems unintentionally appropriate as the coming days of feasting approach to remember how, when I lived in Jordan in the late 1960s, I noticed that people would touch a left-over bread crust to their lips and then place it on a wall where 'the birds' could find it.

Season’s greetings to all. What a year it’s been.


15

There’s one of those early birds
in the (green now) tree outside
our bedroom window – you know
the kind, they get started in
the dark just when you think it’s
safe to try and dream again
but the dream’s gone already,
a transport hub was it, or
a place where people gathered
to hear the news, a battered
bus was leaving but waited
while the poet spoke on the
radio, the imbriqui
paused while the poet spoke,
and then the coffee was poured,
one of the weeping listeners
put his breakfast crust on
a low parapet by the
bus station so the birds could
make sure nothing was wasted –
was this what my early bird
was singing about in the
dark before dawn, or was it
a memory pretending
to be a dream I couldn’t
wake up from in time to go?

2 comments:

Andrew Burke said...

asuppersDear Ian - good to read yr poem(s) and to see yr status. I have a blog which wavers around the 100 mark some days and concentrates mainly on poems, poetics and related events. I would be honoured to republish yr bird-in-the-morning poem with a suitable acknowledgement. And a small publishing history, if y'd like - and if y'd supply it. Regards -

Ian Wedde said...

Dear Andrew
I'd be honoured, thank you.
The Shadow Stands Up poems will be published in May this year in a collection called The Lifeguard.
Best wishes & happy new year.
Ian