Borrowed Plumes | birdie
little blackbird, little blackbird, why do you weep?
Little blackbird, little blackbird,
Why do you weep?
Tears onto charred plumes,
Where no beauty dares sleep.
All around feathers lie scattered apart,
Their owners are all but gone with the wind,
Save for you, little blackbird, standing guilty and dull.
The bluejay, the rock-dove, the oriole, the gull.
Out from jealousy did they light their torches,
Onto an upstart chick, beautified by their plumes?
Out of pride, did you dance under their beaks,
To express, to impress with those frivolous costumes?
Now that your crown was burnt from your head,
do you realise, that birds are distinguished by note?
And neither plume nor prance shall bestow onto thee,
the love for a song from a tempered throat.
Now hustle away youngling, spread word to your kin:
That however charred, however dull you may seem,
Tis the song that forever etches our hearts,
issued forth from tiny bodies in a sepia gleam.
[fluttering, the last of the stolen feathers fall to ground]
Now that she is off, we may finally talk:
wherefore do I tell this story at all?
Why, if you closely examine the men of the quill
And search for goods stolen with sharp piercing eyes,
Taking these from the pages their volumes which fill,
Huge quartos would shrink to a very small size.
to a little magpie-lark who would wait for me at my school gates every morning.
keep warm, all of you
-v.
