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In praise of Old English birds of exile, the gannet’s laughter, swathes of remembered seabirds booming and chuckling, the urgent cuckoo blazing on about summer, mournful and mindblowing, driving the sailor over the edge towards impossible targets, scornful of gardens, salty about city life – I can’t stand not setting off; far is seldom far enough. In praise of a turn of good cluck. In praise of the high-dancing birds carried on the heads of masqueraders and built by wirebenders to carry the spirit of an archipelago of more than seven thousand isles. In praise of grackles quarrelling on the lawn. In praise of unbeautiful birds abounding in Old Norse, language of scavenging ravens, thought and memory, a treacherous duo. The giantess down from the mountain complained – I couldn’t sleep in a coastal bed because of the yammering of waterfowl. Every morning that blasted seagull wakes me. In praise of the peacocks invading the car park at the Viking conference in York, warming their spread tails on the bodies of cars. In praise of the early bird who liberates the dewy worm from glaucous grass. In praise of birds of timetelling: green-rumped parrots for morning, kiskadees dipping at night: and the absence of birds of timetelling, the unreeled horror of humanly meaningless time. 14
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In praise of the bird of the soul that flies out when the body is molested, and in praise of that bird recalling the abuse room as if perched on the highest point of the pinewood press. In praise of the blueblack grassquit, which is inky and small. In praise of the albatross, in praise of the double doors to a swimming baths hall. In praise of birds of concussion, notes in the air being all the brain can cope with. In praise of birds as edible and in praise of birds as angels and in praise of birds as stones and in praise of Thoth the Ibis. In praise of the birds of climate change, forest warblers bringing a new song to the suburbs, late-leaving Arctic tern teenagers blizzarding the beach. In praise of ducking and diving, and without praise of the cruelty of quills. In praise of birds that are not punctuation, that are not calendars, that are not words. In praise of birds that occupy and disrupt a lyrical musical staff. In praise of birds that singing still do shit, shitting ever singing, above a low-rent skylight, on a diet of chips. In praise of triangulation and three unseen corncrakes by whose calls guests may recognize the way to the house on the tipsy hill. 15

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In praise of Old English birds of exile, the gannet’s laughter, swathes of remembered seabirds booming and chuckling, the urgent cuckoo blazing on about summer, mournful and mindblowing, driving the sailor over the edge towards impossible targets, scornful of gardens, salty about city life – I can’t stand not setting off; far is seldom far enough. In praise of a turn of good cluck. In praise of the high-dancing birds carried on the heads of masqueraders and built by wirebenders to carry the spirit of an archipelago of more than seven thousand isles. In praise of grackles quarrelling on the lawn. In praise of unbeautiful birds abounding in Old Norse, language of scavenging ravens, thought and memory, a treacherous duo. The giantess down from the mountain complained – I couldn’t sleep in a coastal bed because of the yammering of waterfowl. Every morning that blasted seagull wakes me. In praise of the peacocks invading the car park at the Viking conference in York, warming their spread tails on the bodies of cars. In praise of the early bird who liberates the dewy worm from glaucous grass. In praise of birds of timetelling: green-rumped parrots for morning, kiskadees dipping at night: and the absence of birds of timetelling, the unreeled horror of humanly meaningless time.

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