Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BIRDS OF PASSAGE, by DOROTHY FERN SEIBEL


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BIRDS OF PASSAGE, by                    
First Line: Wild birds they were; and how we envied them
Last Line: White clouds and spindrift, wind, and white gulls flying.
Subject(s): Birds; Time


Wild birds they were; and how we envied them,
We children, for the Hills of Fairyland
And Far-away that they'd be always traveling.

They stayed at our place for a month or so
While she helped Mother wash and cook the meals
And he helped Father with the hay and grain
(That was before the later settlers came;
We hadn't always neighbors dropping in).
He was a small, dark man, with matted hair
In curls and elf-locks; shoulders like a smith;
Arms that could swing an axe or toss up bundles,
Day in, day out; and fingers that could touch
Soft music from the greasy violin
He kept such watchful care of. Ole, once,
Called it his fiddle, meaning it a joke,
In his broad-spoken way, and we all thought
He wouldn't live to tell it. Pedro, though,
Was jolly with the men, and laughed, and joked
Among the best -- until you noticed that
His eyes seemed always to be seeing things
A deal beyond; and he'd be up and gone
From us on some wild journey of his own.
He'd never answer if you spoke to him
When he was in his moods -- and they slipped out,
Once, without warning, just before the Dawn,
Before two months were out, and they were gone.

Wild birds they were; but now, remembering
The woman's gentle speech and quiet way,
I'd take her for a birdling hovered close
In some more sheltered spot and quiet nest.
For she was tall, and fair, with sunlit hair
Darker above the temples, and a face
Murillo had chosen for his sweetest Saint.
But what we children noticed was her eyes --
Pale, wide, and gray, with too much depth in them
For us to fathom, but sweet as summer rain.
Sometimes, when Gerald teased her, and I coaxed,
She came down by our stream, and told us things,
And let us show her where the snipe's nest was
In spring, and where the little black-nosed cubs
Clawed in the ant-hills, snuffling after grubs,
Till Gerald sneezed and frightened them away.
One day we walked out where a sunken log
Lay bedded in the pond, and I, being taller,
Held on to Gerald's hand, and balanced out
To reach a water-lily, last of all
Their kin to bloom that year and brought it back
To show her. She took Gerald on her knee --
You'd never take her for the kind that children
Are always scrambling over; nor was she;
But Gerald, being there, seemed quite content
And I sat on a log, not far away.
It was the Virgin's flower, she said. "The Virgin?"
"Yes, Mary, Jesus' Mother; she keeps the babies
That haven't any mammas, up in Heaven,
Until their mammas come. I knew two babies,
Once; the littlest, Angela, was two,
And she was fair; Pedro was dark, like Gerald,
With curly hair -- ." Gerald fidgeted:
"I'm not a baby, am I?" "You're nearly five:
Pedro was only four." "Five in November!"
He preened a bit. "Pedro and Angela
Were sick, once, with a fever, and the angels
Took them to Heaven." "Didn't they have a mamma?"
"They had a mamma, then, but not a home;
And babies need a home. Now our dear Lady
Keeps them with Her until their Mamma comes."
"Is that the story?" "Yes, that's all the story."
"What do they do, in Heaven?" "I don't know, Gerald;
We'll have to wait and find out for ourselves."
Well, Gerald wriggled down, since that was all,
And led us to the house.

The years passed slowly, as the years will do,
With seed-time and with harvest, snow and sun:
The Wanderers had grown a legend, whom
We spoke of, now and then, as dreamers in
A long-forgotten tale. One day, at dawn,
When Gerald went out with the heavy pails
To feed and milk the cows, a tiny lad,
Feet spread apart, fists dug in sleepy eyes,
Stood in the doorway. By a nest of hay,
Spread on the floor, a box of clothing, with
A roll of crumpled bills, two rings, and this:
"It was Her wish." We never saw the Man,
Although at intervals came fitfully
Those rolls of crumpled bills, and, last of all,
When there had been no bills for quite a year,
A battered violin -- and that was all.
We never knew the tale. But Peter learned
To tease such music from the quivering strings
As we had never heard. The olden songs
Were sweeter. There were times, in fall and spring,
When, at the ploughing, he would stop and gaze,
With those gray eyes of his, after the flocks
Of honking geese, journeying South -- or North --
Then toss his dusky curls, hook up the lines
Across the horses' backs, and send them home,
Alone; then up and out across the hills --
And we would hear wild strains come drifting down
That made us see gray cliffs and crashing waves,
White clouds and spindrift, wind, and white gulls flying,
Old Ole heard, and shook his graying head:
"He gone, some day, dat boy," was all he said.

Gerald and I had been a year at school
When the news came. Old Ole drove to town
To meet us at the train. "He gone, dat boy.
Three hundred tousand dollars in de vill,
And East he goes to get it. Sure, he gone;
Ve never see him now, again." That fall,
We caught the train for school, and there, stepped down
Peter, with bags, books, and the violin --
Come home. The folks back East, he said, were fine,
But formal. He was lonely for the West.
He married little, blue-eyed Mollie Day:
They took the long-deserted Harkland Place --
The white house on the hill, among the birch
And linden. Masses of red roses lean
Against the walls, and purple hollyhocks
Stand there in Autumn. In the living-room,
Rose china plates and cups are on the shelves;
And a stone fireplace waits, with cones and logs,
For the chill days -- a quiet, homely place.
But sometimes, when the geese are flying South --
Or North -- the sun streams through the purple haze
Across the hills, and we hear, floating down,
Wild strains of music, strange, and sweetly far --
And we can see gray cliffs and crashing waves,
White clouds and spindrift, wind, and white gulls flying.





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