Portugal Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

On the tree lined avenue in Loulé leaves are beginning
to fall, still green even if a bit paler than normal.
It is afternoon and September, but still hot. Sparrows
are flying in from the inland it is safer in the town then
in the upland where sharp eyed hawks prey on them.
I have been told that in Italy they catch the birds with
big nets, and eat them. Plucked, one cannot be much of
a meal one has to eat at last ten to be full.

Mao, in China, tried to remove sparrows because they
were eating too much crops, an act of utter futility,
but then people with total power go stark raving mad.
I enjoy this moment of subdued day light the ills of
the world is far away. I know of a county called Portugal
I came here and learned to live again.