A Bird in the House

April 18 2012

A bird in the house

portends misfortune

bad luck.

For us, as well as the bird.

People have always envied

the power of flight,

the freedom

of ascending,

commanding heights.

And now, we are both confined

to intersecting walls

a low ceiling,

barely glimpsed sky.

I’ve had bats, before,

who can squeeze through dime-sized slits

and veer and cut and shift

with breath-taking dexterity

regardless of light.

But they are cave-dwelling creatures

and find a way.

Birds panic

then go quiet.

Enclosed, contained

they are out of place,

unnatural, inside.

And the world

will be out of balance

until he escapes.

He crashes into walls

attacks picture windows

flutters, and flaps.

We cover our heads

feel his distress,

wish him out.

Which he does, eventually

through an open door.

And we are left

to face the inevitable.

Because only bad luck

will restore the world

return it to balance

set it straight.

Who knows if a bird can be grateful,

now free

to dive, and soar

and stretch its wings.

While we remain inside,

behind closed doors

apprehensively.

You may have noticed the personal pronoun “he” becomes “it” in the final stanza. For some reason, I preferred the sound of “it” here. But then I realized that in this case, inconsistency is a virtue, and that this subtle transformation was meaningful:  the bird is now free, indistinguishable from all the other birds, as it vanishes into the distance. He has now become a generic bird:  more a symbol of freedom and uncorrupted nature than a personal nuisance or threat.

I dislike adverbs. I particularly avoid ones that end in ~ly. The more apparent reason is that adverbs insult – or at least patronize – the reader:  is it necessary, for example, to say “suddenly”? Why not trust the reader to infer this from the context? The less apparent reason is that, inexplicably, I dislike the sound. Which naturally raises the question:  why, of all words, end the poem with an adverb? And why with it’s very own line, no less? The simple answer is that the rhyme scheme dictates this. But the more nuanced answer is that it’s a great word. And that it encapsulates the superstitious sense of unease, of things being out of balance, slightly off-kilter, that I’ve tried to evoke through the whole poem. So, in this case, I think an adverb actually works.  (As does actually in the last sentence! Which, in my defence, I don’t think is hypocritical. It’s in poetry that I don’t like adverbs. Prose is different.)