BYZANTINE BIRDS
Peter Lyssiotis
M A S T ER T H I E F
As if life was a bird
heading out across the water
its wings spread wide-
uplifted
An angel’s hand
is fumbling in my pocket
(maybe he’s after my pocket knife
so he can peel the orange he’s holding.)
Look at how well
fables
grow on fig trees.
I want a heart
that will dream
beyond my sleeping
The feathers I caress do not flinch.
The mountain thyme grips the tiny feet of the linnet, like a mother holding the feet of her tired son.
and it seems no matter which way I turn I will always land on shores where I feel myself dissolve.
This is the call which takes us back to the world.
We try so hard not to die, that by the time there’s nothing left to do but die, we realize no one has taught us to die properly – with grace.
My dead father’s voice, like lavender in the morning.
The sky is such a deceiving mirror.
At the bottom of each thought there are these white oleanders.
… because like the poet said “Human beings can be more than themselves.”
The long tailed flight of the sparrow hawk – like virgin honey on warm bread.
The sound of the old days are everywhere, waiting – and they know me well enough to call me by name
The abandoned mobile phone on the wooden bench lights up and a recorded voice repeats a prayer – over and over.
Why doesn’t it hurt any more?
Will I gamble my heart again?
and my dead mother’s voice always insistent “Your enemy is always riding by.”
The thistles, in full ecstasy, watch the hovering kestrel.
The forked tail of the swallow brushes against the pine tree: I hear a key turn in the lock.
When is the faithful heart wrong?
I was promised a new question.
Swallows have listened to
His stories for years
And now they bring them
over the mountain:
through the moonlight.
These stories are so pure, that
The swallows leave nothing behind.
Get up!
Fly, you lazy swans
Rise up with those delicate bones,
The day is filling up with music
A stranger’s hand marks her door.
Thistles from her bed cover half her soul.
Her children tremble like a forest burning.
A sky full of birds approaches from the south.
She knows all this, so she turns off
The flickering light and opens the back door
The interval between birds
is unbearable
I lie in bed
and
the moon
lies on the pillow next to me:
neither of us get much sleep.
Look!
That sparrow!
He’s brought
the fir tree
with him.
Is that the echo which led us here?
The bird had fallen out of its nest and onto a stony world. It couldn’t help trying to get the feeling back towards its neck, out to its wings, its tail and its feet – trying to connect them and then trying to find a breath to catch to send back to its beloved body.
The finch slipped out of the monastery and flew down to the port. There it settled on the mast of “The Queen of Mercy”.
The ship was sailing towards a land the finch has heard of. A land which was the meeting place of exiles and dreamers. A place far away, planted with spindly, sun – parched trees – where any corner of cool shade was a miracle. The finch knew all this. It was what it wanted.
I don’t think I’ve loved enough… that kind of love that moves in a straight line: linking one moment with another.
“Is the time of birds over?” she asked.
Hope passed us by this evening
– a young bride
with feathers round her neck
A young man
(maybe even someone like I was)
abandoned his heart
on the lowest branch
of an olive tree;
over the years it lost its bitterness
ripened,
won’t anyone pick it?
The old questions.
The old doubts.
The old misgivings.
It’s the old fires
which keep you warm.
Maybe I’ve lived
too close
to the life
I was given.
A white blossom
falls from the eye
of the raven
Had this magpie come
From the tree of life
or from
the gallows?
There is too much world for just one man And one bird.
…and the sparrow flies off
full of pity
because it knows
too much about us.
When a feather falls from the sky
and brushes against your face:
be prepared
You’ll learn something
that has happened
in that other world.
The Spanish,
who know a thing or two about death,
say:
“A door is not a door until
a dead man walks through it.”
and so, my dead father
comes out of church
unsummoned – he holds out his hand.
He doesn’t look like the man I knew;
This one is young, handsome, strong.
His hair is in beautiful, combed in dark waves.
Unsummoned – he holds out his hand.
How the date palm shudders
When the sparrow’s tiny claws
grip onto one of its fronds.
A sparrow dies in a lemon tree:
its cry fills the citrus grove
but disturbs nothing
(It’s a private matter the arrangements were made in a language we don’t understand and in a time beyond.)
A raven cries out
insisting
that God
cover the trees with leaves
then another bird cries out
then another;
until Spring
emerges
slowly
from their beaks
I stare at the rolling clouds
and wait for something familiar
soon
my eyes will lose their way.
Today I can feel it-
the sky is too big for me.
and on that day
God until become a man
again
Know pain in a different way
and with an antique smile
on his face He will show
that He understands again
– from the beginning.
At the insistence of these doves
the words we’d abandoned
have returned
and opened
leaf by leaf
to remind us
of how vast
the world is.
3 words fell
from the book he gave me
they fell
onto the dry soil
at my feet.
What can I do
with them?
Birds insist
on trying to speak
to John the Baptist
whose icon leans against
a closed window.
