Native Bird

Native bird,
Send a light
Try the window
That fires the night.

I walk past
Those cold calm streets
I come last
The all time sweets

I want to be
I would like,
That's better
I be might

The everyone's
Only person
The only one’s
Very awesome

I’m not Ellen
I’m not Gracie
I’m not Joan
Nor miss Chloe

I am only myself
That hides behind the shadow
Of you, orelse
I shall not follow

Let me open my wings
And fly faraway
Start my beginnings
Of course, if I may?

Native bird,
Let yourself fly.

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This poem was Highly Commended (Secondary) for Poetry Object 2016

Judge's Notes:
"This is a tightly wound, and urgent poem. The title’s reference to a bird is even mirrored in the poem’s shape, long and spread out like a wing. And like a bird, there is song echoed through the short rhymed stanzas. They are not all perfectly rhymed and, thus, introduce those variations you would get in bird call. Although the stanzas only seem slight there is a lot going on in them. For instance, the third stanza plays with syntax, the unfinished statements giving that sense of urgency and also openness. The fifth stanza does all its defining by what someone isn’t. So, although it may seem a simple piece, it repays a lot of re-reading and re-hearing. It is invocation, it is about freedom and hope, it is about place and identity. There’s a lot going on here."
~ Jill Jones, Judge, Poetry Object 2016