CAGED BIRDS SINGING

by Lynn White

Songbirds have long been popular among Gaza’s population for their colour and song, but now they’re natural soothers against the thunder of Israel's relentless war [Mohamed Soleimane/Al Jazeera] February 17, 2024

She asked me why the caged birds sang.
I couldn’t tell her,
not for sure.
No mate will arrive this year,
just like last year.
I wonder if they remember,
perhaps they still
live in hope. 

She asked me if they heard the bombs falling
and if they felt fear.
I couldn’t tell her, 
not for sure.
Perhaps peace will arrive this year,
unlike last year.
I wonder if they remember peace,
perhaps they still
live in hope
as we all do here 
where the bombs never stop falling. 

She asked me if they knew
they brought us comfort.
“I think that’s why 
they still sing,”
I said.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY8 MARCH 2022

by Mary K O'Melveny

Today, please celebrate all

the women we have lost.

In every war and cease fire.

On slaver’s ships. On thirsty

desert treks to walled borders.

In back-alley rooms without

anesthesia. Locked in basements,

without papers or escape routes.

Asleep in bed. Hitching a ride.

Nursing bruises or starving babies.

 

Our losses rise like mountain peaks.

Ukrainian women huddle in subways,

clutch children, family pets, a few

hastily gathered objects from lives

they will likely never know again

or tattered photographs of loved ones

they may never see again. Even in

safer worlds, friends die of causes

that repurposed money, refocused

attention could have remedied.

 

Some fade away from neglect,

inattention, dreams downsized

by school guidance counselors,

religious zealots, patriarchy.

Others drop dead without a whimper

on a sun-dappled afternoon. One friend’s

memories vanished by midnight

stroke; another’s by subtle daily

erasures. Open our mouths wide in

praise of all. Let songbirds loose.

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

MORTALITY EVENT

by Erin Murphy

Scientists Still Searching for the Pathogen Behind the East's Songbird Epidemic: In a new report, experts ruled out a range of causes, but they still recommend taking down feeders until the source of the disease is identified. —Audubon, July 8, 2021. Photo: A young Blue Jay admitted to the Blue Ridge Wildlife Center in Virginia with an unknown illness. Credit: Blue Ridge Wildlife Center via Audubon.

Songbirds stumble,  

crusty eyes gunked shut  

with conjunctivitis.  

 

Out of an abundance  

of caution, we remove  

feeders where they cluster  

 

like us to cluck about  

the latest scuttlebutt.  

Hands gloved, we dump  

 

the double-bagged dead,  

muttering that it’s redundant.  

We who have too much  

 

do not fund hungry children  

but grumble when unable  

to fuss over cardinals  

 

in lush gardens. We suffer  

from an abundance  

of abundance. 

Erin Murphy’s latest book, Human Resources, is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Diode, The American Journal of Poetry, Southern Poetry Review, The Georgia Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and elsewhere. Her awards include the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, The Normal School Poetry Prize, and a Best of the Net award. She is Poetry Editor of The Summerset Review and Professor of English at Penn State Altoona.