Cheeky by Alwyn Marriage

The Poetry Archive Now! WordView 2024 Entry
Poet’s Biography
My fifteen published books include poetry, fiction and non-fiction. My latest two poetry collections are 'Pandora's Pandemic' (SPM, 2021) and 'Possibly a Pomegranate: Celebrating Womankind' (Palewell, 2022). For the past sixteen years I have been Managing Editor of Oversteps Books, the Devon-based poetry press. Earlier in my career I was a university philosophy lecturer and then Chief Executive of two international literacy and literature NGOs.
Poem Description / Inspiration
On a cold early spring day, I was charmed by merry birdsong, but although I looked up into the tree from where the sound was coming, I couldn't catch sight of the bird. Each time I gave up looking and started to move away, the song started again, almost as though the bird was playing with me. The poem was written in February and edited in August.
Poem Text
Cheeky
Hide and tweet
A string of sweet sharp quavers trickles
down through winter-bare branches
slicing through pale sunshine to hook
itself onto my ear. I pause,
look up in appreciation of the song I heard,
to check the identity of the singer,
but can detect no sign of a bird
however much I twist and turn my head
to scan the darkening lines so finely etched
across the evening sky. I cannot pierce
the silence that questions whether I only
imagined the lovely song so, thwarted,
I move on; but as I turn to go, the sound
erupts again, still sweet but now with just
a hint of laughter. I swing back round,
hoping to catch sight of the teasing treble,
but there's still nothing there. The tree
reverts to stubborn silence that mocks
my ornithological patience until,
weary of waiting and watching,
I resume my walk, unsurprised that
as I move away, my steps once more
are accompanied by the sweetest music
delivered in unabashed, exuberant arias
by a bird that, while playing at being invisible,
is joyfully heralding the coming of spring.