Tuesday Poem - Ornithology by Natasha Dennerstein

              

                 Ornithology                                                          

In his tombstone hour she elevated him through

the radio, her fantail chirrups and twirbles.

All washed up he was, ready to check out

when an avian voice penetrated his fug. “This

is going out to everyone,” it sung; he

thought 'Does that mean me, too?' then put

down the gun, the can of petrol, the lighter

and ripped the note into a million pieces and

on his long-haul flight the soundtrack was Bic

(she kept the passengers blissful, quiet). In

France there was La Môme Piaf and here,

there was alchemy and a golden Bic and

from her wax eye did leak a platinum tear

and from her beak did pour a string of pearls.

Natasha Dennerstein was born in Melbourne of a family originating in Poland and Russia. She is currently living and studying in Wellington. She has been a psychiatric nurse for twenty years, which has given her an interesting perspective on the human condition and has been writing creatively most of her adult life.
Dennerstein says: “I have always admired the singer Bic Runga: chirpy and dark simultaneously. I was inspired to write a sonnet, not in praise of her, but celebrating her sound and her aesthetic. Any nature poetry or poems praising beauty that I write end up having a can of petrol in them, or the equivalent. I can’t help it: I am made that way.”