'The birds are the keepers of our secrets' sings Guy Garvey on Elbow's latest album 'Build A Rocket Boys'. I've read many poems about birds which have had a profound effect on me, many by Ted Hughes and R.S.Thomas, but there are few songs about our avian friends which do likewise.
Elbow's is certainly one, with its changing perspectives and two very different versions : I actually prefer the reprise sung by one John Moseley, as it's so unusual to hear such an aging voice on a rock song and one which fits so well with the reflective subject-matter.
Few songs about birds have stayed with me, though 'Blackbird' by The Beatles is an exception. Walking home late at night last week I heard a blackbird singing mellifluously. Immediately, that song sprang to mind and filled my head for the long trek uphill, with its remarkable words about the healing qualities of the birdsong.
Unlike my brother , I am no twitcher. While he travels the world in search of rare and interesting birds ( recently, a kiwi in the wild in New Zealand) and can identify any by song or call, I am an amateur watcher.
However, they have played a constant and vital role in my poetry, from my early 'Martins' right up to 'Birds On High Wires' (most certainly finches) from my latest book 'Moor Music'.
They also play an important role in Welsh 'idiomau' and the work I've written in conjunction with Merthyr artist Gus Payne is full of them. Just one example is 'Gwyn y gwel y fran ei chyw' ( 'the hen crow sees her chick as white'), where Gus's painting shows monkeys taking over a house, my prose-poem describes a mother who, like a 'hen bird' can see no wrong in her delinquent son, even when he ends up in prison!
Birds have told so much about the changing nature of this country; revelators rather than 'keepers of secrets'. Kingfishers have returned to our once blackened rivers, but sadly I've not witnessed them. However, I have regularly seen the still and elegant herons and the cormorants at Radyr Weir, messengers of the water clarity and the proliferation of fish there.
I'm always thrilled and astonished to notice red kites flying so close to major roads as you cross Cymru. This threatened breed seems symbolic of our nation itself, which has been saved from the brink of extinction, both politically and culturally.
And now, as early as five in the evening, when the sky's less cloudy and under a clearer moon, I often hear owls making their 'gwdihw' sound
( Welsh-speaking owls, of course!). Their calls reminding of the wild hunting-grounds of the Waun, how precious it is and how it must never be destroyed for an opencast mine.
Sometimes there are rare visitors, like Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, feeding at our garden oak for a moment. We have had homing pigeons who have used the garage roof as a stopover hotel and even one tamed jackdaw who would talk to you and land on your arm. I enjoy watching our regulars, like the pair of nuthatches who eat peanuts upside down like a couple of Antipodean headbangers!
On my travels I've always been on look-out for birds.
Everywhere in Japan there were black kites and in Hiroshima I saw footage of the scenes after the atom bomb was dropped. Above the devastation I could make out those same kites, circling like vultures.
I have had a few scrapes with birds as well in my time, but mostly from a distance. I've been shat on by a seagull in Scotland, rook in Ireland and a pigeon with the runs in Cardiff! None brought me luck! Especially not the last one , as I had to buy a new pair of jeans the damage was so great!
When trapped they can be terrifying creatures. I have managed to coax quite a few out of our garage, but my most petrifying Hitchcockian experience was when we lived in the Rhymney valley. Starlings got into the house when we were out and I returned home to the sight of them, perched at several windows, staring out as though the house was theirs. My wife refused to enter till I'd cleared the place and it took me ages of flapping ,fluttering and sheer panic to persuade them out of openings.
When I wrote the poem below I couldn't help but recall the man on the beach in Wales who was blinded in one eye by the injured gannet he'd picked up to try and rescue ( it had panicked because of his dog).
This seagull seemed more street-wise than anything ( well, platform-wise at least).
Anyone else got strange bird tales?
KAIRDIFF CENTRAL SEAGULL
I've never felt threatened by a seagull before,
but this one's got 'STREET'
written along its beak,
which suddenly looks sharp
as a Stanley knife.
I wouldn't be surprised
by its swagger and attitude
if it wasn't into NWA or Tupac.
It eyes up my food
as if it already owns it
and I recall those stories of seabirds
snatching pasties or putting eyes out.
Those days spent by Aber pier
throwing crusts to balletic birds
seem a century away,
this creature's Kairdiff Central
born and bred, could pick
a packet from the rails
just before the inter-city's in.
It struts around me :
I am surrounded by a single bird!
Its pupils are two barrels
aiming straight at my cheese and celery.
I gulp the sandwich whole
like a heron with a fish.
Bro Seagull saunters off
to mug a kid with a burger
Elbow's is certainly one, with its changing perspectives and two very different versions : I actually prefer the reprise sung by one John Moseley, as it's so unusual to hear such an aging voice on a rock song and one which fits so well with the reflective subject-matter.
Few songs about birds have stayed with me, though 'Blackbird' by The Beatles is an exception. Walking home late at night last week I heard a blackbird singing mellifluously. Immediately, that song sprang to mind and filled my head for the long trek uphill, with its remarkable words about the healing qualities of the birdsong.
Unlike my brother , I am no twitcher. While he travels the world in search of rare and interesting birds ( recently, a kiwi in the wild in New Zealand) and can identify any by song or call, I am an amateur watcher.
However, they have played a constant and vital role in my poetry, from my early 'Martins' right up to 'Birds On High Wires' (most certainly finches) from my latest book 'Moor Music'.
They also play an important role in Welsh 'idiomau' and the work I've written in conjunction with Merthyr artist Gus Payne is full of them. Just one example is 'Gwyn y gwel y fran ei chyw' ( 'the hen crow sees her chick as white'), where Gus's painting shows monkeys taking over a house, my prose-poem describes a mother who, like a 'hen bird' can see no wrong in her delinquent son, even when he ends up in prison!
Birds have told so much about the changing nature of this country; revelators rather than 'keepers of secrets'. Kingfishers have returned to our once blackened rivers, but sadly I've not witnessed them. However, I have regularly seen the still and elegant herons and the cormorants at Radyr Weir, messengers of the water clarity and the proliferation of fish there.
I'm always thrilled and astonished to notice red kites flying so close to major roads as you cross Cymru. This threatened breed seems symbolic of our nation itself, which has been saved from the brink of extinction, both politically and culturally.
And now, as early as five in the evening, when the sky's less cloudy and under a clearer moon, I often hear owls making their 'gwdihw' sound
( Welsh-speaking owls, of course!). Their calls reminding of the wild hunting-grounds of the Waun, how precious it is and how it must never be destroyed for an opencast mine.
Sometimes there are rare visitors, like Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, feeding at our garden oak for a moment. We have had homing pigeons who have used the garage roof as a stopover hotel and even one tamed jackdaw who would talk to you and land on your arm. I enjoy watching our regulars, like the pair of nuthatches who eat peanuts upside down like a couple of Antipodean headbangers!
On my travels I've always been on look-out for birds.
Everywhere in Japan there were black kites and in Hiroshima I saw footage of the scenes after the atom bomb was dropped. Above the devastation I could make out those same kites, circling like vultures.
I have had a few scrapes with birds as well in my time, but mostly from a distance. I've been shat on by a seagull in Scotland, rook in Ireland and a pigeon with the runs in Cardiff! None brought me luck! Especially not the last one , as I had to buy a new pair of jeans the damage was so great!
When trapped they can be terrifying creatures. I have managed to coax quite a few out of our garage, but my most petrifying Hitchcockian experience was when we lived in the Rhymney valley. Starlings got into the house when we were out and I returned home to the sight of them, perched at several windows, staring out as though the house was theirs. My wife refused to enter till I'd cleared the place and it took me ages of flapping ,fluttering and sheer panic to persuade them out of openings.
When I wrote the poem below I couldn't help but recall the man on the beach in Wales who was blinded in one eye by the injured gannet he'd picked up to try and rescue ( it had panicked because of his dog).
This seagull seemed more street-wise than anything ( well, platform-wise at least).
Anyone else got strange bird tales?
KAIRDIFF CENTRAL SEAGULL
I've never felt threatened by a seagull before,
but this one's got 'STREET'
written along its beak,
which suddenly looks sharp
as a Stanley knife.
I wouldn't be surprised
by its swagger and attitude
if it wasn't into NWA or Tupac.
It eyes up my food
as if it already owns it
and I recall those stories of seabirds
snatching pasties or putting eyes out.
Those days spent by Aber pier
throwing crusts to balletic birds
seem a century away,
this creature's Kairdiff Central
born and bred, could pick
a packet from the rails
just before the inter-city's in.
It struts around me :
I am surrounded by a single bird!
Its pupils are two barrels
aiming straight at my cheese and celery.
I gulp the sandwich whole
like a heron with a fish.
Bro Seagull saunters off
to mug a kid with a burger
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