Time Of Blackbirds Poem by Liilia Talts Morrison

Those were the days of Northern blackbirds
holed in large trees too old to care
spread much like totems on a landscape
their messages not heeded anywhere

How lost I felt in that strange manor
transplanted suddenly to flee the war
a wayside province thin of population
safe as a tiny raft upon the sea

Mostly I think of offbeat details
like a big golden brass spittoon
that seemed to stand for something solid
from days that people once called 'good'

There were those tempting little morsels
round discs of hardened robust Finnish bread
strung in long rows on wooden dowels
we hungry children did not dare to eat

Ah, there were lilacs and white apples
a Linden tree too dangerous to climb
and puddles by the side of fences
gray ancient stones to mark firm boundaries

There were the guppies and small leaches
we children teased them in green brackish ponds
long hours spent in youthful exploration
of nothing in particular at all

We used to watch our driven uncle
as he moved bees and beehives here and yon
he was the only one who noticed
that we were people, even though quite small

Most grownups seemed so stern and distant
our aunts and uncles seldom said a word
as children wandered aimlessly through caverns
of rooms with secrets none could know or tell

There was that time of lonely separation
when sickness banished me to a small room
then spending hours watching through the window
as others laughed and played on sun strewn lawns

Those trees and rooms and Northern blackbirds
where are they now, why should I care?
And then I smell a bough of fragrant lilacs.
I'm there. I'm there. I'm there.

Those were the days of sooty blackbirds
on trees that stood in twisted disrepair
great lonely totems on a landscape
mute sentinels with timeless wooden stares.