Will Parfitt, the publisher of “Into The Further Reaches” has kindly given permission for me to quote the full text of Claudine Whiting Bloomfield’s wonderful poem. The anthology can be bought online from PS Avalon

“The Songbirds”

We are all wounded,

of course we are.

Were it not so

we would all fly

heavenwards,

a fantastic fluttering,

and burn up

in a glorious blaze.

But something leadens our wings

and makes us adjust

and dip

away from the glorious sun…

an unexpected current,

a bent feather,

forgotten scar tissue.

And each morning,

despite ourselves

we rise again…

finding a current,

creating a current,

to take us skywards.

And each day we hear

horseshoes clattering on the road

worn a little more

and echoing less

then new again and humming

tin-sharp and quick in the air.

And each day the wind

plays her instruments differently

as the trees grow higher

and the branches bend

a new arc towards the earth.

And so I say,

as you preen your feathers

so straight and perfect,

it is the bent one

that keeps us here

where the symphony is playing.

Claudine Whiting Bloomfield