“Hedge-bandit, song-bomb, dart-beak, the wren
hops in the thicket, flirt-eye; shy, brave,
grubbing, winter’s scamp, but more than itself –
ten requisite grams of the world’s weight…”
You do not need to see us -
not being made for eyes and gasps
of admiration. God fashioned frames
feather light, to flit and and fly, shy
as mice. A tiny torso, brown and round
speared with a stubby flagpole tail
to signal any alarm
You will not see our likeness
fronting cards at Christmas
bold breasted as Robin
nor hear our tik-tik clarion cries
fleeing like fox before hound
in those seasonal days, long gone
when men and boys hunted us down
as tokens of fertility -such futility
No, we were neither meant
for your gaze nor scapegoat
in that puerile pagan rite.
Now every St Stephen's day
we pray that winters will be kinder
to our kin, and come the Spring
we'll sing with such symphonic sound
musicians will marvel at the melodies
and poets beg their Muse to grant them
declamations, elegant as ours.
Epigraph from Carol Anne Duffy’s poem ” The Wren Boys” – an ancient practice when wrens were hunted and stoned on St Stephen’s day, December 26th
For her Poetics prompt: December Point of View, Melissa asks us to select one from a given list of birds and animals associated with Christmas/December and write a poem of personification, I chose first person plural for the Wren – it being a favourite bird and one of concern in harsh winters. – see British Trust for Ornithology: Wren Facts, winter decline and song recordings
PoetryPix 