Vi inleder med gräsmattans patrullerande parkvakt, som känns igen på sin ständigt vippande stjärt, sädesärlan. På engelska heter den wagtail.
Wagtail, by Les Murray (f. 1938)
(From Collected poems. Sydney : Duffy & Snellgrove, 2002.)
Willy Wagtail
sings at night
black and white
Oz nightingale
picks spiders of wall
nest-fur and eyesocket
ticks off cows
cattle love that
Busy daylong
eating small species
makes little faeces
and a great welth of song
Will and Willa Wagtail
indistinguishable
switchers, whizzers
drinkers out of scissors
weave a tiny unit
kids clemming in it
Piping in tizzes
two fight off one
even one eagle
little gun swingers
rivertop ringers
one-name-for-all
whose lives flow by heart
beyond the liver
into lives of a feather
Wag it here, Willy
pretty it there
flicker and whirr -
if you weren't human
how many would care?
***
Vi fortsätter med snårets skickligaste imitatör, törnskatan. Den heter shrike på engelska.
The Shrike, by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
(From Bright wings : an illustrated anthology of poems about birds. New York : Columbia University Press, 2010.)
Hark -- hark -- from out the thickest fog
Warbles with might and main
The fearless shrike, as all agog
To find in fog his gain.
His steady sail he never furls
At any time o' year,
And perched now on winter's curls,
He whistles in his ear.
***
Och så har vi matvraket, sidensvansen, som äter sin egen kroppsvikt varje dag och ibland blir berusad på jästa bär.
På engelska heter den waxwing.
Cedar waxwings, by Jonathan Aaron (f. 1941)
(From Bright wings : an illustrated anthology of poems about birds. New York : Columbia University Press, 2010.)
A dozen of them dodged and fluttered
in the branches of the thirsty rhododendron
being drenched by our backyard sprinkler. Some perched
among the leaves holding their wings open to the water
as others, a little apart, shrugged themselves dry.
I lost count as more kept arriving
in their black burglar masks, brown or black
throat scarves, olive green jackets and crested hats,
yellow trim at the end of their tails. Those in command
flaunted bright red flashing near their wingtips.
What could have led people in past times, I wondered,
to regard these birds as harbingers of death?
They're tame and sociable. They call to each other in flight.
Several may sit together on a branch
or wire, passing a piece of fruit back and forth
beak to beak, sharing the taste. Mating pairs do this
with flower petals. An adult can hold
as many as thirty chokecherries in its crop
and regurgitate them one by one into the mouths of its young.
They love to party. Sometimes they get so drunk
on overripe berries they keel over
and then have to sleep it off.
The branches they flocked on bobbed and sagged, and the air
was full of their gleeful gibberish.
Not one of them weighed more than an ounce.
***
Slutligen den lilla rödbröstade hoppedockan, rödhaken, som dyker fram ur buskaget. Det är väl bekant för många att den heter robin på engelska.
I have a bird in spring (verses 1-2), by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
(From Collected poems of Emily Dickinson. New York : Gramercy Books ; Avenel, N.J. : Distributed by Outlet Book Co., 1982.)
I have a Bird in spring
Which for myself doth sing --
The spring decoys.
And as the summer nears --
And as the Rose appears,
Robin is gone.
Yet do I not repine
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown --
Learneth beyond the sea
Melody new for me
And will return.
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