appreciated ... at last

It's been ages since I started to write and started is the best word because I can take a record breaking time to finish something. For about three years I've been wanting to write about something quite specific in my life and I've never been able to say it properly. Something has always not been perfect about it. It has to be perfect because it is delicate like a wing or sugar grain. Here it is, and it is about to be published by people who appreciate it. Please take a look and have a comment.

BIRDS

Pigeon ladies, help you down the stairs
I'm waiting at the bottom for you to jump up
and tell me it's a joke.
Frail fingers decorate the lounge
while in the kitchen I hold onto the the wallpaper
like a sorry sparrow, I listen for a
miracle.

You pace yourself and we're always ahead
annoyed and upset you can't go faster
and the white tailed doctor has become a regular
shouting won't make you better, he says
but the volume and the twirping
get louder every day.

This is magic birdseed
it makes your insides green so the doctor can see what's inside
and inside the house I can see what's outside your heart
it's bruised a little/little
and mum is running around with
black paper
to cover the windows
and stuff inside the telephone

Magpies, lot's of magpies
sister magpie scurries everywhere
there's an empty church here
but everyone has lost God.
And everyone has left their mirrors
and forgotten their fathers eyes.

You're broken a bit robin,
and I cry and hold you delicatly
and ask what to do,
what to do without you

your little eyes glimmer
and someone has selotaped your mouth
and stolen your hair
and broken your wings
and replaced your nest
and all you can do is sit in silence
because I am too afraid to disturb you

I asked the air to take you
so you left quietly
and I watched you, sweetly
with your peardrop hair and
red red chest,
pick up your last treasures and gently
fly away.


(c) amelia j smith 2006