Hope may nest, its inkwell mean more than any Grail
when a Palestine sunbird lines her home with down
from an angel’s fontanelle. When, instead of bombs,
white storks land on roofs and build their nests
from salvaged olive sprigs, while in the burnt groves
a dove finds one green vowel. Even the raven brings his gift
of holy quills when the soldiers come, showers them
with stardust from his feathers, so they see their humanity
and harm no one. I watch all this with barbed wire lashes –
on each spike a shrike has impaled hope. Yet
I know that sparrows nest under a stork’s eyrie,
keep mosquitoes of shrapnel from their hosts’ chicks.
The commonest bird can be the most lyrical, when
she perches on a warhead that hatches only song.
new boots and pantisocracies 