Song Bird Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Defiantly- the little bird refuses song.
What is he now, without a master, and the spattering
Of seed: he had always had a home. The cat scarred
His beak, but still he felt a mistress who gave her charm;
Who flounced her bosom in the delicacies for every ounce of
Daylight’s navy, who hooked his master around the arm,
So that they passed around one another equally like
Siamese twins retreating- to this they encouraged him to warble.
What made him not hesitate to flee,
Even as the canon balls are flying?
But the greater apertures which cooked outside his windows,
The fluming clouds, the baying seas, each crest and caesura
Bares repeating:
And now he rests out on the Cliffs of Dover,
Each bone as hollow as the reeds rustling, gossiping of the wilder
Fellows,
While all the men are back in town betting on the dogs,
Shaking tickets above their heads, while their wives pour
It over, the wine from the casks, from the bottles to
The glass, the vineyards of hidden interests speculated on
By winsome’s lip;
But the little bird has no more windows, the horizons are
Fruitful and swaying, each leafy shadow cusped by yellow
Pools and tapered; and meaning many things, and in each direction
Turns away, or back again to the wind according;
Thus the wheat bays on the fields, like a lover in comely tassels;
But of all these things the bird will not say, for now
It is left off of its way and all this is even too much to sing of.