i
I never wrote that poem on the Cuckoo.
Some ideas appeared and went, just like the Cuckoo.
I never rested on a rock, or paused to write,
my shots developed only space, the bird took flight.
Some mornings rose from silent covers, moist,
still others, wearing hope and sunshine, softly voiced.
The days went past, fast, fluttered to the ground,
unmelting tears like feathers suffered, without sound.
ii
The Cuckoo moved and moved me
not to write at once, but now
I’ve built a nest where strange eggs rest
among the branches by the Sound,
where words are gulls that rise to
westward over Bryher’s savage ground.
iii
I lay awake awhile in bed amid a morning,
heard the calling of the bird: one cry in hope
and one, forlorn in sadness.
Rarer than the Cuckoo in my life you are:
two times, two notes, I heard, but love
has only one true voice and sings of joy,
above, below of madness, without sound.
Refer to: Feb 2021 – Available in all branches
I enjoyed the vivid images of the elusive bird and the wild island landscape. The romantic element is perhaps too personal to be explicit, and the last line is disturbingly strange! The formal aspects of the poem are interesting.