Chipeep! Chipeep! Children, the nest
too small for all five, you must
step off and fly, yes it will bear you, step off –
circle and land, the spider-woven beams
your runway, fly children, fly, chipeep!

Nervously erect aristocrat of the skies,
a spare, taut navysuited mother
with her red bib and pink tinted blouse,
worrying over her children. The brood she has reared,
in this inhospitable summer, hunch together
cupped in a featherlined house of mud.
 
Chipeep! Chipeep! Children, the air
is rough and the midges few; I can’t
feed you all, so big you are grown,
fly children, fly, chipeep, chipeep!

The cold makes them slow. They tumble and flutter
down onto hay bales. A burst of sunshine
warms them and for a minute they are perched
along the top of the half-door, white gape-folds
making dissatisfied statements
on their small beaked faces.
They face the wind, ruffled and uncomprehending.
When it dislodges them they fall, and squat,
navy suits crumpled, tails outspread,
and both parents shriek as they swoop and glide.

Chipeep! Chipeep! Children! Cats, weasels!
stoats, owls! Children, wake, stir yourselves, fly!
Cattle will crush you, horses tread over you,
even slow humans capture and injure you,
fly, you must fly! Chipeep!

Speed is their life. Flying their brilliance. Air
is their medium, and thousands of miles
have streamed under their wings since
last year when they were children here.
A falsely bright spring and unpractised youth
have brought them to ragged thinness, feeding
the large and hungry brood who, in the pinch,
are dull; the weather cold, battering
winds, food hard to gather,
the rain heavy and sticking the feathers.

Chipeep! Chipeep! Children, why do you sit
dazedly staring skywards, flip your young wings
and fly, lift onto air and live!

It is evening, and the stones grow chill.

The mare does not crush them as she walks in.
The dog cannot reach them from his rope.

The wife lifts them from her path. Numbed as they are,
naïve, they cling to fingers with small
black claws, sharp as wires. They are no use to her;
no egg or flesh worth coveting, no down for pillows.
Yet she scoops the clustered young, the light
ephemeral fragments of breathing feather; places them
softly on a hay bale, nestled close for warmth.

It is her gesture to beauty, to the mystery
that should guide them to Africa; to hope.