In this still blue bright out of nowhere they appear, five, six, nine, just hanging I notice them peripherally, a flock much larger than the usual circle of seabirds a tenth is still falling, a stone tied to a ribbon then the shute flowers finally and she brakes. I hear them distantly woo-hooing each other legs a-dangle, bodies hung from a string. Maybe they’ll bring us news from that upper realm: ‘the air is cold and thin’, ‘clouds wispy like pillows’ or say how we appear in our gardens unexalted, climbing ladders, walking toddlers or, having snatched themselves out of the great mouth tell us the particular word death said when denied.
Image: Royal Australian Air Force parachuter, c. 1939, c/- State Library of NSW on Flickr.
And for music this morning, here’s an early album by Max Richter, The Blue Notebooks (youtube) – (maybe start with the familiar ‘On the Nature of Daylight) which he described as a meditation on (and against) violence. Featuring Tilda Swinton reading from Franz Kafka and poet Czesław Miłosz‘s Hymn of the Pearl and Unattainable Earth. Originally released in 2003, here we are nearly 20 years on…
Peter Frankis writes 
Amazing, Peter. This is my favorite ever from you…
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I love every line of your poem.
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another wonderful poem from you Peter – it is full of silence as though the air itself has landed with mouth tight shut on what death defied said
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Thanks so much Laura – one of those while I was out gardening, something odd appeared.
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The Blue Notebooks: brilliant. I listened, and then replayed it, and listened again. Your poem: a moment captured, like catching a moth in your hand, and then letting it go because you choose to.
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Yes Notebooks is beautiful – and Tilda Swinton too. Glad you liked.
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Lovely poem, glad to be reading you again. I like how you characterize them as a flock. Tilda has that Meryl Streep type voice that could read just about anything.
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Thanks Lisa – Yes – big fan of Tilda.
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You’re welcome.
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Lovely!
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