Feeding the birds

I’m writing this in May, which is the perfect month for birdsong. There are few things better for the soul than birdsong, in my opinion. A combination of freedom, light, the promise of the new – all those things in wrapped up in that cloud of sound that you just know must have taught humans what music was. Right?

I love looking out at the birds in the garden, especially right after the feeders have been filled. There’s always plenty to watch, getting an insight into the relationship dynamics between all the different individuals – I guess it’s all about the literal pecking order – and how they communicate between one another, singing included.

This poem is about all those bird feelings, but the ones stirred up in the heart of one of my favourite (most relatable) characters, the Minotaur.

I’ve written a lot about the Minotaur over the last few years. I can’t get away from him, somehow, but not as a horror figure, not as a human-eating monster, rather as someone who is trapped in a dark maze, waiting to get out. So, I like to imagine that Minotaur, adjusting to a life of freedom, heading out into his garden to feed the birds, his wee blackbird in particular.

The Minotaur, a character from classical antiquity, has had me write in different classic forms. I wrote a series of poems about another Minotaur finding his freedom in the iambic hexameter (a challenge – give it a try sometime) and I had a Minotaur character in a one hundred verse ballad. That took some time. And, for this poem, I’ve gone for a sonnet, which just seemed to fit.

The Minotaur Filling The Feeder For A Blackbird

These grains and crumbs will give you strength for song
Come little one, sing to me, give me sky
The spring is short, my winter was so long
Come sing my truth, if all my life’s a lie

Those corridors of memory, regret
The screaming at the walls where darkness bleeds
If all my life’s a lie, let me forget
And give you space to pick and peck at seeds

Now I have learned to tell the night from day
Though you may sing to me or moon or sun
Where darkness bleeds, you heal it anyway
A crimson thread you gave me, little one

Oh let me watch you fly through roofless days
Believe this Minotaur can leave his maze