May 21, 2012

Media Malaise: A Perspective from Migrating Parakeets Flocking in Jerusalem’s Cyprus Trees

-KJ Hannah Greenberg
September 15, 2010

 

So many budgies,

 

Winged French horns,

 

Little tubing wrapping in feathers,

 

Soft, coiled, flared bells,

 

From Australasia, or, Africa,

 

Chartreuse against the golden-

 

Blue Jerusalem winter twilight,

 

Surprise the local heavens

 

By flocking after mincha, during sunset,

 

And arousing evening ulpan students. 

 

 

 

Reverently, we regard

 

Those foreign sky fish’s serenade,

 

In our native Russian,

 

French, English or Amharic.

 

An eclectic ensemble,

 

We note not mellophones or trumpets,

 

But bright motes capable of holding

 

Their seed for many years.

 

Such tomes could craft Shemyim’s music,

 

Or at least release its gates. 

 

 

 

Beyond our storied building,

 

Those most intelligent of birds,

 

Whose nomadic flights,

 

Spew them beyond our Bedouin cousins.

 

Quickly trill air, produce high notes,

 

Plus issue startling tones.

 

Their chambered music,

 

That type of sound,

 

Unique to out-of-towners,

 

Gets media time. 

 

 

 

Those travelers insist,

 

Via winged, strange twitters,

 

Anxiety amidst their production

 

Of praise and protest,

 

While balancing on Israeli cedars of Lebanon,

 

That this holy city’s timeless lanes

 

Lack plumage comforts.

 

That our mighty boughs,

 

Ought to be otherwise acclaimed

 

As among closed cones.

 

 

 

The natural course of scented needles,

 

Of perfect decussate pairs

 

Dissuade visiting songmeisters.

 

We settlers frequently hear

 

Imported remarks

 

About caged cousins’

 

Disordered spaces and lives.

 

Such complaints,

 

Resound toward Har Moriah

 

Reminding us of international complications. 

 

 

 

 

KJ Hannah Greenberg's writing has appeared in numerous venues, worldwide, including in: Fallopian Falafel, Horizons, Mishpacha Magazine, Poetry Super Highway, Scribblers on the Roof, The Blue New Yorker, The Jerusalem Post, The Jewish Woman, and Poetica. Last year, Hannah read poetry submissions for Sotto Voce and was named, by The Shine Journal, for the Pushcart Prize in the category of poetry.