I Wish I'd Written This

The Language of Birds
After Galway Kinnell

If one were to interpret the language of birds

one might begin by confessing a fear

of heights, remembering days atop

the hemlock and the uneasy alliance of

thin branch beneath feet; and one would

have to study landings, carefully, for many,

many years before attempting to fall

with arms wide open from some great height.

If one were to interpret the language of birds.

If one were to interpret the language of birds

one would have to throw open the doors

and let them all in: warbler, wren, the swift river swallow,

and it would be necessary to make a bed

in the girders beneath the silver train bridge

and in the rafters of the abandoned barn

where the farmer hanged himself

and the swallows sang him all night from flesh.

If one were to interpret the language of birds.

In order to interpret the language of birds

one must ask what the crow knows of death,

what the red-winged blackbird knows of the reed

in the marsh where the world begins, again,

each morning, and one must rise out of bed

although the desire to do so is gone and the grey light

falling through the window touches, briefly,

a sadness that lives inside all that one is,

in order to interpret the language of birds.

If one were to interpret the language of birds

it would be necessary to steal from other songs

the one true song – the few notes sung

to please the jailor – and in singing feel

bones begin to thin and throat lengthen

and like the Baal Shem Tov  one would hear

their entreaties and know their songs

as the first griefs ever sung.

If one were to interpret the language of birds.

Eve Joseph

A fervent bird-lover myself, this poem really speaks to me, especially the lines about birds’ warblings perhaps being the first grief songs ever sung. By my age, one accumulates a significant weight of the “sadness that lives inside all one is.”

Eve Joseph is a Canadian poet who grew up in North Vancouver, B.C., and who worked on freight trains and travelled widely in her youth. She and her family now reside in Victoria, on Vancouver Island. 

Her first book, The Startled Heart (2004), was shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. The book from which the above poem was taken, The Secret Signature of Things (2010), was shortlisted for the Victoria Butler Prize and the Dorothy Livesay Award. She received the 2010 P. K. Page Founder’s Award for poetry and the 2010 Malahat Creative Nonfiction Prize.

Ms. Joseph is a hospice worker, drawing from her experiences to write her non-fiction book on death and dying: In the Slender Margin: The Intimate Strangeness of Dying (2014), which won the Hubert Evans nonfiction award.  Her nonfiction has been short-listed for CBC Literary Awards, and was named the Globe Books 100: Best Canadian non-fiction 2014.

Her new book of poems, Quarrels, is coming out in May of this year. I can’t wait! Information on all Ms. Joseph's books can be found here.

When I contacted Eve to tell her we were featuring her work, she offered us a sneak peek at a prose poem from Quarrels, and I jumped at the chance to share it. Let's take a look:

*****

MY GRANDFATHER LAY MOTIONLESS BENEATH A CHENILLE BEDSPREAD.

His upturned hands drifting like little boats. He was coming and going through the open window, a little further each time. Chestnuts, spiked like medieval maces, lay on the ground in what looked to be the aftermath of a long and arduous battle. Death is inside the bones, wrote Neruda, like a barking where there are no dogs. I kept my distance. Behind me, my father was on his knees by the hospital bed. I couldn’t tell if he was praying. On the wall, his shadow leaned slightly forward. As if wanting to comfort but hesitating to intrude. 

*****

Eve says her stroke in 2013 “changed my view of myself.” She wrote a wonderful essay about it in the Globe and Mail, which you may find of interest. Her website is here.

Let’s look at one more poem from The Startled Heart:

A starling with no feet

eats at my table: a few crumbs, dried cranberries.

Where does it get me,

my foolish pity?

Intentional or not, you stepped

in death's way.

A bone-white edge, the near perfect

fit of broken things.

Too late for lessons now. A blackbird spoke

because you asked.

It's hope that does me in: the place

the voice breaks.

What's left? A kind of grace:

a perilous landing.

As we can see, this poet knows much about death and dying, which is also to know a great deal about life and living. We hope you enjoyed these offerings.

Material shared in 'I Wish I'd Written This' is presented for study and review. Poems, photos and other writings remain the property of the copyright owners, usually their authors.