**
Ett djur som kan härma människornas ljud är helt klart en värdefull varelse. Men i Susan Mitchells dikt är papegojan försvunnen.
Lost parrot, by Susan Mitchell (f. 1944). Första halvan av dikten.
(Först publicerad i The Atlantic Monthly, 1999.)
She can cry his name from today to tomorrow.
She can Charlie him this, cracker him that, there
in the topmost he hangs like
a Christmas ornament,
his tail
a cascade of emeralds and limes.
The child is heartsick. She has taped messages
to the mailboxes, the names
he responds to, his favorite seeds.
At twilight she calls and calls.
Oh, Charlie, you went everywhere with her,
to the post office and the mall, to the women's
room at the Marriott where you perched
on the stall, good-natured, patient.
And didn't you love to take her thumb
in your golden beak
and, squeezing tenderly, shriek and shriek
as if your own gentleness
were killing you?
...
***
Jag fortsätter med en mycket populär fågel, välkänd från Kalle Ankas julprogram. Några av de minsta fågelarterna i värden tillhör den här gruppen. Kolibrier eller hummingbirds som Donald Duck utbrister när han fångar dem i kameralinsen.
Humming-Bird, by D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930)
(Från Birds, beasts and flowers. : Poems. London, 1931.)
I can imagine, in some otherworld
Primeval-dumb, far back
In that most awful stillness, that only gasped and hummed,
Humming-birds raced down the avenues.
Before anything had a soul,
While life was a heave of Matter, half inanimate,
This little bit chipped off in brilliance
And went whizzing through the slow, vast, succulent stems.
I believe there were no flowers, then
In the world where the humming-bird flashed ahead of creation.
I believe he pierced the slow vegetable veins with his long beak.
Probably he was big
As mosses, and little lizards, they say were once big.
Probably he was a jabbing, terrifying monster.
We look at him through the wrong end of the long telescope of Time,
Luckily for us.
***
Men huvudkaraktären i Kalles roliga fotografjakt är väl ändå den tokiga hackspetten.
Så därför får Jane Hirshfields dikt om den återvändande hackspetten utgöra trumvirvel när inlägget gör sorti.
The woodpecker keeps returning, by Jane Hirshfield (f. 1953)
(Från After : poems. New York : HarperCollins, 2006.)
The woodpecker keeps returning
to drill the house wall.
Put a pie plate over one place, he chooses another.
There is nothing good to eat there:
he has found in the house
a resonant billboard to post his intentions,
his voluble strength as provider.
But where is the female he drums for? Where?
I ask this, who am myself the ruined siding,
the handsome red-capped bird, the missing mate.
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