15 July 2012

Song of the Unseen Bird

Song of the Unseen Bird

                       H. L. Spelman 


To walk so long with her in so much quiet
Then hear that unseen bird, whose name
I don’t know, wouldn’t know where to find,
Singing somewhere among the leaf sheen,
Was to realize why, when his beloved hero-killer
Resolves at last to die, Homer gives us
Not the laments the sea nymphs wail
But the nonsense song of their limpid names
He makes up: Limnoreia and Doto and Proto
And sometimes there are no words
And Kallianassa and Kymodoke and Maera
And sometimes no words could be sad enough.

Ashwing, Seedquit, Spotted Larmer:
Tee-way tee-wee tee-wooo
you sang to us.




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