! ! Two Birds On A Tree Poem by Michael Shepherd

Look at this old photograph..
some of these old photos look
more ancient than their, what,
hundred-and-twenty years;
as if the very air was different, then?

This one’s simply of
two birds in a tree:
one sits and watches;
the other eats the fruits..

this moment, frozen, framed, in time,
takes on the epic stature
of a metaphor, a myth:
what of the previous second
in our passing time? What
of the next second?
Where have those birds come from,
where may they go next?

If we cease to patronise
their ‘bird-brains’, see them
closer to their God than we
whose minds depart so far from nature…

if we think they think, in thoughts
which we may share – then,
what are they thinking? what
do they think of one another?
I look again at the photo, speculate;
the photo grows in my concern
to some great tree of primal Paradise…
the Tree of Knowledge, could it be?

Is the one bird thinking,
what a fine place this is to rest!
A place to hide, if so need be,
among its leaves; a height,
an observation post,
I still, the world about its business;
in stillness, I a little nearer to God,
just a little lower than the angels,
without beating my wings to find
a heaven above…

Is the other bird thinking,
what a fine restaurant I’ve found,
that God provided; I so hungry
on my way; how much I need to eat
to give me strength for further flight…

and have these two birds even noticed
each other, and each other’s state?
Are they two siblings from the self-same nest,
flying together through their lives;
loving one another until the last birdfall?
Two rivals, just about to fight to death?
Or, two fore-flyers of the same great flock,
about to land and strip the tree of fruit,
then rest, God-filled, to know Him in that stillness?

These thoughts; an ancient photograph;
now I wonder about the unknown photographer
who saw the world, in two birds on a tree.