Parrots

after Du Fu


for Dennis Mahoney


So! This sad cloud!
this sad, green cloud.

Parrots. They remember
their ancestors,

those tame, obedient servants
who sang on command

and mimicked the voices
of the hands that fed them,

and released them
to this spacious wildness

too spacious for their brains
to fully comprehend.

Now look at them,
their feathers frayed,

their purple beaks
dulled almost to gray.

And as they pass over—
a mass of green—

they look down as if
they know more than me.

They have forgotten
the comfort (or curse)

of that imprisonment.
The place they came from—

those rusted metal frames
and rotten perches—

lie in ruins.
The hands that petted them

and released them
have crumbled now to ashes

and now lie long buried
in the earth they fly over.

And together—en masse—
they have lost the uniqueness of their beauty.

Instead—look!
see how they exult

in their lack
of rarity.

Orange County, California.
December 1, 2007