The migrant butcher bird or shrike
impales its prey upon a spike
upon a chosen hawthorn tree –
presumably to keep for tea,
while robins, on the other hand,
bounce to and fro upon the land
and there and then, with flaming breast,
the hapless things they catch, ingest.
The blackbird all its adult life
has just one husband or one wife,
spins on one constant ground of choice
the golden figures of its voice,
unlike its cousin, who prefers
a chain of Northern hims and hers
and when the going’s tough takes South
the liquid honey of its voice.
Oh how I wish one day to know
which bird I most resemble, though
I sometimes doubt if (truth to tell)
I could resemble any well.
As I observe the farmyard owl
as it observes the lesser fowl
which one would I, if choice were free,
the eater, or the eaten, be?
Considering how often love
is in my mind, am I a dove?
And then – alas! – I hear me talk
and know that underneath’s a hawk
like that which quarters next door’s field
exploring what the grasses yield,
but even as I think, its prey
plead cogently the other way.
And as I speculate, perplexed,
on what I should consider next
the unpremeditated song
persuades me that to choose is wrong,
that I should think, as Auden’s bird,
such abstract questioning absurd,
yet – is it decent not to give
a single thought to how you live?
To which replies the feathered brood:
“all song is ipso facto good,
and all may soothe the savage beast.”
which does not help me in the least.