Beethoven’s Yellowhammer

“dzi-dzi-dzi-dzi” – call of a Yellowhammer

Some birds sing
the notes of their names
like the Hoopoe and Tinkling Cisticola;
or clamour and chatter
like the Kittiwake or Chachalaca.
Some ask you to take them at their word
like the Grouse or the Go Away Bird.

Do birds sound like themselves
to themselves? Since we
named them by their music
what melodies might we hark
from the Monotonous Lark,
the ‘Ō‘ō
or Satanic Nightjar?

All birds are composed or composing.
Flocks are orchestra, the dawn a chorus,
and the blackbird an artist of dusk.
Mozart’s pet starling
whistling the opening bars
of his allegretto in Piano Concerto 17.
Gustav Mahler’s cuckoos.

The yellowhammer clinging
to the tree of the world, singing
Yes Yes Yes Yes
in the Prater Park of Vienna,
fluting the first
four notes of the Fifth.
And Beethoven listening.

DAVID MORLEY

David Morley’s most recent collection of poems, FURY, 2020, was a PBS Choice and was shortlisted for the Forward prize

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