Adoption

[BenJohnson]

The hedges calling hunger drove the black bird
through days which stretched away from equinox
like worms he hauled from spring rich flower beds
and hammered into numbness on the bricks.

From morning chorus through to twilight twitters
he racked his beak with grubs and worms and flew
them back to yawing mouths and frantic fluttters
of wings fighting to be the first to feed.

His endless journeys caught my short attention
span causing me to wonder why he worked
so hard he risked a world of worm depletion
I labelled him a workaholic bird.

Then June he brought his lads down from the nest
both twice his size and brown with speckled breasts.

[David]

Something about the rhythms of S1 made me think of Dylan Thomas - no bad thing to me, although some might disagree. S1 is pretty terrific all around, I would say. S2 and 3 don't live up to that - "twilight twitters" and "frantic flutters" in particular. And "yawing mouths"?

Not keen on tacking "span" on after "attention" either.

The last couplet, though - great. Made me smile.

Cheers

David

[ray miller]

Long lines to get acquainted to and a lot of alliteration!I liked "stretched away from equinox" but spring rich flower beds" felt a little too full.
As David said, it's better without the span after attention.You need some sort of punctuation after depletion. I'm just telling you before Ros does.
I'm assuming the ending refers to cuckoos, though I have no idea what cuckoos look like.

[thoke]

Slightly confusing, but I like the alliteration and the speckled breasts. I'd move the word 'span' to the end of the preceding line.

Ben

[Helen Bywater]

I agree with what David said, pretty much. I love S1, especially the idea of days stretching like worms, and the last couplet amused me.

I also stumbled over "span", though my first thought was that it needed a comma after it. Call me old-fashioned if you will, but I don't get this aversion to punctuation. It adds so much to the rhythm and pace of a poem.

[camus]

Enjoyed! Especially the first and last stanzas (clever little twist, that explains the title). Is it modern Sonnet season?

I think the lack of punctuation falls down in this stanza, and as mentioned the attention/span is a little bumpy:

His endless journeys caught my short attention
span causing me to wonder why he worked
so hard he risked a world of worm depletion
I labelled him a workaholic bird.

Nice
Kris

[BenJohnson]

Damn I hate this site, I always hope I will get away with the bits I feel are weak and never do

The first stanza had a lot more time on it than the next 2 and it obviously shows. Thank you all for your suggestions, looks like S2/3 need a lot more care and attention.

This was in honour of our garden blackbird. The poor bugger spent all day hunting for worms and looking excited when I started digging. He got quite thin and we wondered what was going on until he turned up with the kids. Looked quite strange these two huge birds with him still demanding to be fed. I thought cuckoos only laid one egg, so not sure what happened here.