Birds Of Hong Kong Poem by Gilbert Pangyarihan

To Hong Kong and the seasonal birds

Bird songs wake me in the morn.
I still am; I must be dreaming.
The sun is peeping, birds ring a-twittering.
I am reborn from where I mourn.

I peer out the window – Sparrows!
“Await the morrow, wipe your sorrows.”
Birds are a rainbow, come from darling.
Some are gently gliding, some simply darting.

Their songs, a symphony played in my dorm.
Woe is me if one morn I hear but worms.
Some birds are migratory, telling tall stories,
Scaling clear stories that give Hong Kong glory.

Some birds preen the hills many and green
While some of them clean many a dustbin.
Some birds sow seeds through random droppings
While some pick aphids to feed their nestlings.

Some birds propagate plants they pollinate
While some serenade many an escapade.
Birds beautify the air they occupy;
I sigh as they bid me goodbye.

Alas, some birds are trapped on the wrong map;
After taking a whack, told not to come back.
Caged for an odd reason: they wear sham plumage
Or stay beyond the season.

I see inside many a pigeon and many a quail.
Captives in the region, they mutely wail.
I see also many a cuckoo and many a swallow;
Myself too – hard to swallow.

They are mingled with birds of prey
And could do nothing but pray
That high above in Hong Kong’s sky,
Birds still could freely fly.

(Hong Kong,2001)