When All the Birds Were Called Away Poem by Gerard Smyth

When the back door opened in a sudden gust

the noise of the birds hit a lull

as though all the birds were called away -

it was like the silence I heard once

in a great cathedral, a foreign church;

in the museum after Sunday lunch

when we were young in the age of boredom.



When all the birds were called away

it was like pause at the start of every song that's sung,

that moment in the jazz club

before they bang the cymbals and beat the drums

or like the hush in the stonebreaker's yard

where once historical drama was played

by poets, pedagogues, fanatical hearts.