Tag: ornithology

‘Magpiety’ by Czeslaw Milosz

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The same and not quite the same, I walked through oak forests
Amazed that my Muse, Mnemosyne,
Has in no way diminished my amazement.
A magpie was screeching and I said: Magpiety?
What is magpiety? I shall never achieve
A magpie heart, a hairy nostril over the beak, a flight
That always renews just when coming down,
And so I shall never comprehend magpiety.
If however magpiety does not exist
My nature does not exist either.
Who would have guessed that, centuries later,
I would invent the question of universals?

Montgeron, 1958

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Source: Miłosz, Czesław. New and Collected Poems, 1931-2001. New York, N.Y: Ecco, 2003. Print.

First Barn Owl Egg Hatch

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Wikipedia Poem, No. 484

“There is a separation / between life and death / where [feathers] grow // and that is where I want to go / this weekend,” paraphrasing Padgett
screech
in green darkness
and 
stamp 
         my 
          talons

wet 
      leafy flesh 
the 
master has built 

there 
will be 
many bones

a small mouthful
       of mouse
      a 
      fatty 
       bite

Wikipedia Poem, No. 343

Joseph M. GeraceLeave a comment

 

many equal things
and the kestrel today
and the case

no things
and the side
of the earth

itself
i am likely
the earth itself

i am likely the kestrel
powerful and free will die
its body fall-flung by the side of all

it is most likely the side of the
kestrel powerful and free will
likely become the side of all

it is most
likely the earth
itself

i am likely
the side of all it is most
likely the earth itself

i am likely the kestrel today
and i will the earth itself
i am likely the meadowlands

reminding in the side of all
it is most likely the meadowlands
reminding many equals