birds

These are poems about flight, poems about flying, poems about flights of fancy, and poems about things that fly like planes, jets, kites, leaves, butterflies, birds and bees...

Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as butterfly wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...

Originally published by Hibiscus (India)

Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch

We are learning to fly
every day...

learning to fly—
away, away...

These are my English translations of poems by the first poet we know by name, the ancient Sumerian poet Enheduanna, the great Jewish Holocaust poet Miklos Radnoti, the ancient Scottish poet William Dunbar, the eclectic German poet Georg Trakl, the English poet Pauline Mary Tarn, who wrote poems in French as Renee Vivien, and other poets from around the globe so famous we know them by a single name, such as Basho, Chaucer, Dante, Homer, Issa, Rilke, Rumi, Sappho and Virgil...

This is my modern English translation of the poem "To the boy Elis" by Georg Trakl.

To the boy Elis
by Georg Trakl
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest,
it announces your downfall.
Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness.

Your brow sweats blood
recalling ancient myths
and dark interpretations of birds' flight.

Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls;
the ripe purple grapes hang suspended
as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness.

These are poems about Dylan Thomas, as well as poems "for" and "after" Dylan Thomas. Dylan Thomas was one of my favorite poets from my early teens and has remained so over the years. I have written three poems ‘for’ him and one poem ‘after’ him …

Myth
by Michael R. Burch

after the sprung rhythm of Dylan Thomas

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

These are poems about birds such as herons, cranes, gulls, geese and anhingas. 

Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch

Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!

Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.

***

Lightning
shatters the darkness—
the night heron's shriek
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

***

This is my translation of one of the oldest rhyming poems in the English language: the Middle English poem "How Long the Night" which dates to the early 13th century and appears to predate Geoffrey Chaucer. 

How Long the Night
anonymous Middle English poem, circa early 13th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

wet
with the dew
of a heavy rain—
the scent of ozone
lingering still
 
          *
 
a bird cries
somewhere in a nest—
her shattered child
 
          *
 
the gate has opened—
I walk through
looking for salvation
 
          *
 
these are the souls
who wander
the desolate streets—
I search their eyes
they do not see
 
          *
 
in the street
after a heavy rain—
a moment of heat
 
          *
 

rays melt
into the blue light
of another heaven
 
        *
 
wind washed
water melts anew
on the blue horizon
 
        *
 
birds
of another day
have joined
for morning prayers
 
        *
 
looking east
the pages turn
to the wind
where all the blind
begin to see
 
        *
 
jigsaw night
among the red and blue—
once more I'm
back together again
 
        *
 
sometimes dead as sin—
reborn for another day