"Bird Watcher" by Clive Wilmer (R.I.P.)

Soundtrack to this episode

Text of poem:

Bird Watcher

It returns to the same nest. The watcher lies

beneath spring brushwood to await its coming–

at watch so long he dreams himself becoming

less than himself and more, the landscape’s eyes. 

Though far beyond his eyes, beyond the range

of field-glasses, he knows it breaks no bonds: 

its instinct to his knowledge corresponds,

riding the current of the season’s change. 

What is there in a small bird’s blood that learns

to plot its course by sun and stars, being drawn

yearly toward a lost, remembered dawn? 

The watcher broods on this. The bird returns.

And all its colours flash where he attends–

a deep blue mantling rust and white. It sings

caged in his retina; then on curving wings

veers off to vanish where the human ends. 

Topics discussed in this episode include:

-My episode with Zina and David on Fireside Chat

-My essay, The Iron Lyre

-My essay, The Monumentalist Manifesto

-Subscribe to the Versecraft substack! 

-Also subscribe to Zina, David, Matthew, Ethan, Alice, Steve, and Chris's substacks!

-My interview with Dick Davis

-John Ruskin and William Morris

-The Books of Enoch

-"To A Waterfowl" by William Cullen Bryant

-"Sunday Morning" by Wallace Stevens

-A Poeta Ad Avem

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My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet:
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)