Ode to dehydrated birds fallen from the skies to dirt by Laurent Grisel
Ode to dehydrated birds fallen from the skies to dirt
birds, fallen birds, swept-up birds,
speak, what do you bring from the heights?
What air, what tainted air? What useless struggles?
What smells? What visions of distance?
you, victorious over gravity,
never falling, not chained to the forces
that pull toward the center of the earth,
you who fly all around the earth
according to the compass rose
but we, upright, stooped, tested
by the strength it takes to climb
even a slope divided into stairs
even a road divided in switchbacks
we, upright. reduced to earth
like a burnt car
on an ascending curve
like a bicycled freighted
with spiders and rust
our stooped back, our muscular buttocks,
our pillar thighs, our quick feet, tired
old woman with round shoulders
in the ascent, heavy shopping bags,
bulky purse–could I help you?
it isn’t us, the elegant effort, the tremendous power
to tear yourself off ground, two wings
beating down, pushing the entire self to the heights
and two wings stalling, soft descent, speed hoarded
and again the glide, a litle higher, swifter, stronger
symmetrical body design,
shoulders, elbows, wrists, flanks,
beginning at the center, articulated segments
toward the outermost quills
your shoulders angled upwards, driving
elbows, wrists, feather-fingers,
prolonged to the utmost to catch air, the gusts,
and your shoulders canted down,, to push
and climb
always forwards
say: wingspan
repeat: wingspan, windgspan, wingspan
birds, wholly attuned
to your body-spirit
at home in this in-between of space
below, distracted violence of zoomans
above, self-contained violence of clouds
clouds that hoard their suspended waterfalls
tons by the hundred thousand, so much gravity, mass
attracting masses, picture the waters of the body
attracted, waters by waters, driving
ever upward?
birds, fallen birds, swept-up birds,
speak, what do you bring from the heights?/
we, earthbound, what scorching air,
dusty, turbulent, numbing,
sustains us? can we breathe?
what is our state of breath?
birds that glide on the currents
spirit and body whole beyond separation
outstretched wings, quivering
legs and sustaining tails
all feather-roots tell you
throughout your bodies, the strengths of wind,
tell the wind’s motion and
wings, legs, tail, answer in the moment
balanced flight, honed flight
revealing to earthbound eyes
the journeys of the air which otherwise
no one could know
what do you bring back from the heights?
what dreams? what premonitions?
do you see your death coming
or much earlier did you sense it
in the fight against the thickened flow
thwarting you more and more
the air gone from sustaining to turgid
unnavigable molasses
emaciation
from heat and hunger
stove-in eyeballs,
swollen wing vein
fractured wings
shattered skulls
speak, in your fall, did your hear
the wind passing though the leaves
never to hear it again?
you, discovered in thousands on the ground
your symmetry broken in the fall, your life
reduced to undone feathers, fused, heaped,
speak, in your fall, did you hear
the roar of machines
never to hear it again?
the moment is at hand
when pain vanishes, great calm
of the tunnel of light
when you are high aloft,
watching your own flight
from above yourself, watching
the wide plain, the prairie, the flowers,
bugs within reach of your beak
don’t given in to pity
don’t speak of the animals, ,
the plants, the forest, glaciers, oceans
the birds–to mention only you
don’t encounter death
eye to eye, beak to beak,
to feel sorry for yourselves
the way mourners do
filing into cemeteries, weeping
for an approaching extinction
we know whom
solid egoism
made them fall like stones
while chirping
that they were right
better end in anger, blunt
and sustainable
Translated by Dennis Nurkse and Laurent Grisel
,
Laurent Grisel: worker in the outskirts of Paris, then in the Dunkirk region, where he ran an inhouse trade union. Certificate in high tolerance mechanics. Studies in psychology (psycholinguistics, neurophysiology), For nine years, secretary-general for a consumer rights organization (CLCV). Then director of development and general director in an environmental consulting organization (Ecobilan).
Author of works including La Nasse, a long critical poem in reference to a dialogue between the philosophers Pierre Bourdieu and Hans Hacke; Un Hymne a la Paix (16 fois); Climats, épopée; Journal de la crise de 2006, 2007, 2008, d’avant et d’apres, record of the present and a premonition of the future.
La Nasse and numerous poems were translated by Cid Corman and published in broadsides and literary magazines in Japan and the U.S. Other poems like (PP comme polypropylene) and Musique were translated by Penny Allen or Dennis Nurkse and published in The Saint Ann’s Review.
D. Nurkse is the author of twelve poetry collections, most recently A Country of Strangers, a new and selected, Knopf 2022
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