Aviary Without Frontiers

To observe a posse
of pink-footed geese
spray itself across the fens
like a fusillade of buckshot
is privilege indeed,
as is the sight of swirls
and whirls and whorls
and scrolls of duck –
of mallard, sheldrake,
shoveler and wigeon,
like initial letters from
illuminated manuscripts;
as are the equinoctial tides
and bores and tsunamis
of the frivolity of starling
fanning horizon to horizon,
a most delicate lace
in photographic negatives,
black against the twilit sky,
feather-ropes of rigging
both translucent and transient.
How these last ballets
stalk anonymous highways
among the faded stars!
Each bird hitches
a kite-string ride
in the slipstream
of its neighbour: reversing,
somersaulting, chasséing,
and promenading
in some avian carnival.
All this then is to witness
the colossal history
of the birds
and the tentative
and embryonic war-dance
of the tribes of man.


David Crann


If you have any thoughts about this poem, David Crann  would be pleased to hear them