The axe is blood red, by the worn churchyard door,
And there's a dark moisture where it's usually dry:
The pigeons are quiet now and no longer cooing;
For the ones who survived must fly higher than high.
So fly away Peter, fly away Paul;
Don't be found hanging round the churchyard no more.
The children are weeping and rubbing their eyes
As the feather's go tumbling, unanchored and free;
Bloody clumps clinging, to bush and to vine,
And a small pile of birds at the foot of a tree.
So fly away Peter, fly away Paul;
Don't be found hanging round the churchyard no more.
The attacks were unwarranted; murderous rage:
Something gone awry, in the caretaker's mind;
So he pulled out his coat sleeve the long skinny blade,
Putting to rout all the birds and their kind.
So fly away Peter, fly away Paul;
Don't be found hanging round the churchyard no more
Now the children have nightmares, which rouse them from sleep,
But it's too late to save their young eyes from the sight;
And the mute beaks are opening up toward the sky,
While they beat bloodied feathers through long endless nights.
So fly away Peter, fly away Paul;
Don't be found hanging round the churchyard no more.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem