Blackbird

"The Woosell cocke, so blacke of hew, with orenge-tawny bill" (Bottom in Act 3 of A Midsummer Night's Dream)

The blackbird did not sing, 

but opened his yellow beak to caw

as though he wanted to be

something other than himself. 

The clouds grinned, at first,

like white teeth, but turned 

to shrouds that hung across his eyes,

the wind groaned its own song

in his head, agonised, as the sky

frowned and soured itself into a storm.

But blackbird, the moon is not for you,

nor the naming of stars; the dawns are yours -

wormpink and stretched fleshy and elastic 

from the earth. Get back, woosell cocke, 

coal osle, to your ivy citadel, 

be plump on its nightberries and half-truths. 

He folds his eastern wing, then his western wing,

and belonging only to himself,

pipes a melody of ashes,

his heart - a burial ground for love.

Image is from here: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_black_bird_AM_Delphi_8140.jpg