Blackbird sings as the sun shines low,
Atop the pine tree planted long ago.
I think I remember you from last year,
All winter long you have echoed in my ear.
Yes, I recall you, I’m sure, especially when
You drop into our garden with your hen.
Your eye and beak bright, your dark wing strong;
Are you come again to honour us with your song?
On and off, you sing from dawn to dusk, then rest
In the darkness of our shrubs, hidden in your nest.
But one day we find one of your young, forlorn -
Crippled and dying in the middle of the lawn.
The next day, another has taken its exact place,
Far from nest and branch either side: an unsolved case.
Gone for a month now, you briefly return alone
And we wonder where your brown hen has gone.
Feathers now flecked grey and head almost bald,
Blackbird, are you sad, are you sick, are you old?
Is it for fallen fledglings that you come to grieve?
After pecking hopelessly at grass, you finally leave.
It warmed my heart to hear you sing from on high,
But have you gone now to wherever birds go to die.
Blackbird, come back next year and sing again,
Here to our garden, on this road that bears your name.
(2010)
A true story: The Blackbird of Blackbird Road. That’s him in the picture.
You have to be careful with rhyming couplets – that way doggerel may lie. Hopefully I’ve avoided that trap here – along with the other pitfall of bathos…
I read somewhere that an astonishing 75% of wild birds die before they reach six months old - but WHERE do all those billions of birds go to die? Apart from the odd fledgling fallen from the nest and the occasional casualty of cats, how often do you see a dead bird? The nocturnal clean-up system by the creatures of the night must be extraordinarily efficient...
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