Tag: birdsong

Bird is Spring

by dawnraver, posted in Feel-good, Gratitude, Health, healthy, inspiration, Joy, magic, Mood, Ode, Poetry, Psychology, relaxation, Self-help, Wellness, Writing

If you go down to the woods today 
you’re in for a big surprise 
as dozens of darling dinosaurs 
compete for their opera prize

A phrase from one may establish its rhythm, but 
then it’s lost as another phrase cuts blithely across it 
with all the informality of free verse, in rich cacophony 

And then that rhythm you heard before 
will suddenly reappear 
in a moment of ordered harmony 
as if made for the human ear  

Then it’s gone again, but the sounds still delight – heaven-storming chitterings 
pulsing scintillating emanations through the sap-irrigated matrix of the Chloromyriad  

The Old Romantics oh!’d and ah!’d  
for they found it uplifting and freeing 
and now the science is backing them up: 
It bolters our mental well-being  

So bathe in the forest and smell the earthy humus for even now  
the Star-lungs are warming up their vox-boxes in readiness – may we likewise  
prep our auro-tubules for sensitive apprecio-resonance with this ancient treasure of our planet!  

If you’re on the road to Chitterfest  
you’d better keep moving fast  
for tomorrow’s the day the developers come  
so this chance may be your last

Sing on, sweet birds, sing on your spasmodic gutterations of brain-brightening liquid light! 
Star-lungs: stars are flowers; flowers is bird; bird is Spring…. No bird, no Spring

Should every bird that ever there was 
stare mute from under glass – 
just dozens of dry, dumb dodos – 
we’ll despair that this came to pass

Gloom Breaker – an ode on the tale of the heart-healing power of the songs of the birds of Rhiannon

by dawnraver, posted in Gratitude, Ode, Poetry, Welsh mythology, Writing

I

At dim-lit dawn on Platform 1 in sombre throng
we stand forlorn in flat, sense-numb routine 
until from trackside trees bright breaks the redbreast song:  
clear, lucent water in a crystal stream   
We tend to think that we’ll not hear
such music at this time of year
yet chiffchaff, thrush and finch brave Winter’s squall   
Untensing, in my mental eye
I spread my wings; I rise and fly
upon the soothing sound set free, and then recall  

 

II

how Branwen’s hope lay likewise in her feathered friend  
as she in miniature set down her news:   
‘Come soon! I, Queen of Eire am by brute force detained  
Your sister, Bran, they torture and abuse’   
She ring-wise rolls her chosen words
and gently takes the docile bird’s
frail form and round a tiny leg she ties   
the note. A kiss, to wish it well
then through the window of her cell
releases it and skyward, swift the starling flies  

 

III

It lands, it sings, they read, they sail, but sail in vain:  
A fire claims her child – she can’t but grieve   
and though Bran’s fleet a wood had seemed upon the main  
Just queen and seven soldiers live to leave   
And these in shock, with aching hearts
Then board their ship and disembark
Across the sea in saddest state they sail
When finally they reach their home
She dies of grief with one last moan
In sympathy the voices of the songbirds fail.

 

IV

How heavy sat the sorrow of these seven men
While songbird silence held the land in thrall
They travelled on together through the gloom and then
They came to Harlech with its feasting hall
And here a wondrous sound they heard
Of great Rhiannon’s mystic birds
And suddenly sweet bliss displaced their pain
And here for seven happy years
This magic kept away their tears
As I too am uplifted waiting for my train.