Why they fly

I wrote this back in 2008. Not sure why or how it ended up in my Drafts folder, but when I tried to repost it, it appears with today's date (new format on blogger.com that I've yet to master).

I was attending a wonderful workshop on appreciating poetry run by my friend Wendy, and she mentioned a poem by Thomas Hardy, called The Darkling Thrush. We didn't get to read the poem, but what I understood of the poem was that it was about a thrush singing in a desolate landscape, and the poet wondering why.

Later, when I sat down to dinner, dissecting my spaghetti bolognaise and a somewhat irksome poem by Yeats, this suddenly came to me:

They have no knowledge
of all we doubt, or question.
So they sing, and fly.


I thought perhaps I should read Mr. Hardy's poem before presumptuously posting my own response to it, so I googled it and found an interesting review, as well as the poem itself. I hope you will read the link I've provided. It's incredibly beautiful, savour each word, each line. I can hardly believe that these words are written by the same man who wrote those stern novels with tedious descriptions of architecture for literature students to agonise over. Oh, such beautiful wise use of words .. I'm so jealous, so inspired, so moved. But I'm also relieved to find that my little haiku doesn't jar against what Mr. Hardy said.