[Moodpomes: Calendar of Correlatives]
At twilight scrawny starlings screech
like harpies hunting empty streets,
braid trees and ledges in high-pitched fuss,
knotting in rows at hollow dusk
like charcoal beads tightly queued
entreating night's protective hood,
unless a hawk-cry snaps their thread
and black beads scatter, half unsaid.
(Pub. in Descant, Texas Christian Literary Journal,
Vol.25, No.2.)
Appreciate comments. (Cardiac problem has slowed activity to a crawl.)
I’ve read them all several times, so now I have to go back over. Good thing is, like all good art, we see it differently with every view. There’s always a surprise. I’m reading them to my 6 year old now, and he loves them. Big fan. I’d forgotten about this one. Read it a long time ago. The poem, like all good ones, runs in one’s mind like a good film. Pictures are formed in our brain. We like the birds. Care about them. We can know them. And, the poem is very short, yet tells us a story that could fill pages. Terrific piece of literature. I’m always a fan of “less is more” and this poem nails it!
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Some talents when approached begin to look small after all, but yours, William F Dougherty, looms ever larger. And the more carefully I look, the more I see in your work - and I know there's still a lot more there to be discovered too by better minds than mine. Be well Mr Dougherty. This site needs you badly.