The Birds of Kellie Law

Haworth Hodgkinson

There was no wind over the darkened rolling hills
scattered with trees and orchards,
only silence when the voices began,
at first a single call from a distant tree,
then replies from trees awakening
in different directions,
until the whole landscape seemed to resound
to the serenely plaintive response
of these unseen unknown birds.
I sensed no purpose
to this gentle fierce polyphony
filling the night air,
and yet I could imagine these creatures
performing the same ceremony
every night,
creatures seeming at rest in an existence
far preferable to my own.
I felt far removed from my daily urban realm,
the calmless routine from which only hours separated me,
and yet I felt no unease at my intrusion.
My inner heart wanted to remain forever,
to surrender to this music of an hundred thousand years,
but ill-learned discipline knew I could not stay.
I knew I had glimpsed some other world
from far beyond my childhood
which could never be mine,
a world in which I had nor place
nor meaning.

Written 1987
Revised 1990/1994
Edited 2006

Published in The Broken Fiddle Issue 3, 1994
(Banff & Buchan District Council)
and in Breaking New Ground, 1998
(Aberdeenshire Council)