“all the colours” by Peter Midgley
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “all the colours” by Peter Midgley.
all the colours
By Peter Midgley
the white bird that never rests, the egret that follows the herds,
the bird that speckles the flanks of the beast, the fledgling owl,
the bird with blackened tail, the whistling whydah, the white-thurled parasite,
the bird with mottled belly, the bird with slated withers, the martial eagle,
the bird whose flanks grow tan in flight, the flash of red, the starling’s wing,
the roan of the rock-pigeon, the dregs of the millet, the eggs of the lark,
the bird that wears a golden crown, the bird that carries an eland’s wattle,
the crowned lapwing, the dun beast with white patches on its flank,
the tawny yellow beast that bellows, the feathered feet of the kite,
the hide that flows like the sand of the sea, the speckled belly of a pitpit,
the bird that is the colour of burned porridge, the sedge-dwelling cisticola,
the brown harbinger of death, the lightning bird, impundulu,
glittering red and dun and yellow and brown and black and white.
bird of grief, mottled beast, ashen calf of the approaching dusk.
Note: Nguni cattle are named for their resemblance to animals or their features, or after their resemblance to natural phenomena. Impundulu, the mythical Lightning Bird, inhabits the dun-coloured hammerhead ibis, thekwane, as its familiar.
Copyright © Peter Midgley
Peter Midgley was born in Namibia and grew up there and in South Africa; he currently lives in ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton). Peter has published collections of poetry in Afrikaans and English, including Unquiet Bones (Wolsak & Wynn), let us not think of them as barbarians (NeWest) and a chapbook, 20/15 (Agatha Press). His poetry has appeared in anthologies and magazines, including The Polyglot, CV2, New Contrast, New Coin, Literator, and as guerilla poetry in Gaza.
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