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Margaret Leggatt's avatar

I love the close up vibrant details of the birds - claw, eye, wing - and the back and forth of their songs. It all left me unprepared for the understated shock of the ending, its silence. Your last line is powerful, and resonates. It's so true, so pertinent. So many 'ravaged places' - and may I take your image a little further and say it speaks to me of people with ravaged hearts, maybe even ourselves, and that it's imperative, and possible, to keep on cherishing them.

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Julie Barton's avatar

Oh yes, I love that Margaret—indeed we can take ravaged hearts and keep on cherishing them, and isn’t birdsong after a war a metaphor for that for sure.

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Christy Warren's avatar

So good. I find grounding in listening to the birds too.

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Amrita Skye Blaine's avatar

What a powerful, political poem!

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