Birdsong

The holiday people camp in softdrink shade;
The white sun dances in the brown tea
In the hot cup, in the hot day
Where the attenuated birdsong shrills
Into untenable heights soprano
And the sun splits as the liquid jars
As a door slams �"
Open.
Let time suspend the execution of the hour
For this one moment here in sunshaft,
Here cool wind, beyond our Kafka country, beyond
Our torn-wallpaper lives, beyond the city
Where the world outruns its cliches,
Green verdant and blue ultramarine �"
I attempt a free translation of birdsong.

Reviews

[W.k.kortas]

Lovely pacing, fine imagery ( i especially like the soft drink/tea interplay.) I think the "beyond" at the end of the eleventh line dangles a little; I think if you move that to begin the next line it makes the eleventh and twelfth lines work much more effectively. Still, that's a niggling complaint with a very strong and well-built piece of work.