Brown Small Bird
The Nightingale will always be a mythical bird.
Did you ever see one outside poetry?
The Nightingale is named into anonymity, like a Monk,
like the celebrated girl who is only beautiful.
What a different thing it was when
Wild-Bird took
actual berries from my hand.
Blessed, I wanted statues made of it, a
city named, or something
Brown, small, bird.
Not to be known by his name anymore
than you, or me
by Lew Welsh
from Ring of Bone
Grey Fox Press,1979