Tiresias and the Birds

The blind man in the park settles on a bench

guided by the hand of his daughter.

 

Aged, yes; dishevelled too some might say,

his eyes pure whitened pools of augery,

 

his fingers knotted sticks

of divination eager to reveal.

 

His daughter unwraps a parcel of food

and he examines this holy offering - its scent

 

and taste - regurgitating a mouthful

into the palm of his hand.

 

I watch this man, the ceremony of it all

his deep consideration in the eating,

 

the majesty of his gestures – a pullarius attuned

to the elemental, moulded by nature, re-moulding in return.

 

He stretches, reaches out, extends his tawny arms

to a half-obscured sun. The way she hovers over him

 

like Athena imparting a dream – not his daughter

at all I now see but his concubine, perhaps,

 

instilled with a devotional spirit to nurture and protect

or some form of muse – a doula comforting

 

by her very presence and this intrigues me, that a woman

so young can devote herself to a man so old, as if they are one.

 

The birds swoop and clatter, cluster around the bench.

He picks one out and it succumbs to his will

 

the eyes, beak, and claw-steps pinched for signs

of pollution, instances of profanation or miasma.

 

The park is alive now with the howling

of pious birdsong. Gannets and starlings squall the air,

 

lark-tails and tree-creepers stir the leaves.

And not only birds – dogs too slip their leash

 

settle themselves before him in adoration, their owners

mystified – helpless as a mute Attic chorus -

 

bewildered too as this strange assembly continues

until at last the seer brings down his fist

 

angered by a discovery of glutted impure blood

 and the birds scatter - a feather-bomb detonated,

 

a sudden explosion of glittering wings - whereupon he,

with the help of his mysterious companion,

 

rises and says for all to hear: ‘Are you so blind

to the magic in this world ?’