Thursday 8 December 2011

Black Irish poetry


Winter is here, and - as every winter - a blackbird sits in a tree at the back of our house and shouts at a fellow male on the other side of the river.

I once happened to be equidistant between two such blackbirds, and - do you know - I understood every word they spoke. One would throw out a melody (I don't know who started it, I arrived late) and the other would pick up the main theme and throw it back again, but better. I did not think that it could get any better, but they somehow continued to improve on the tunes long after I had become tired and hungry and left them. They were still improving at about six in the morning, when I went downstairs to check on their conversation.

They spoke of history. They spoke of beauty. War, peace, love and death. They spoke of everything, but in such a way that it could not be recalled or written down as notation. I understood everything, and for that I am extremely grateful.

Theirs is an oral tradition, like Irish poetry.

10 comments:

  1. Hello Tom:
    Beautifully put. It is things such as this that make us wistful for England [and Ireland, of course].

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  2. You have to come to Australia, Tom...to decipher the Kookaburras' conversations. I imagine it is all about footy, beer and dirty jokes the way they carry on!

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  3. How much wood would a woodchucker chuck, if a woodchucker could chuck wood?

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  4. Would that be like the back and forth between yourself and John?

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  5. That was lovely Tom...listening with your heart...

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  6. Wonderful, the storytellers of the bird world. Nice work, Tom. I agree with Brismod that Kookaburra's yarns would not be quite so refined! Magpies on a full moon though, they are the choir birds.

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  7. Personally I find the morning song of the Blackbird far more beautiful than the wretched all night song of the Nightingale. The Blackbird knows when to stop!

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  8. Oh Tom - I love it! We have eleven blackbirds at our bird table this morning (all cock birds) - I shall have to try to listen to their conversation now.

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  9. It's all true, Weaver. When you listen to one, make sure you can hear the other, which begins responding before the other has quite finished. This goes on all night - they don't seem to sleep at all. After about 10 minutes, it has the same effect as a babbling brook. Tongues of fire, etc.

    The closest thing to Kookaburras we have here is the Woodpecker, and they come in two varieties - 1920s black and white, and glorious Technicolour (TM). They have a vocabulary of one word, but I have not - as yet - been able to understand what it means. I think it's abusive.

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