The Birds of Glasgow

Bird by bird I have come to know the earth. Pablo Neruda

Ubi aves, ibi angeli. Thomas Aquinas




The pigeons of Walmer Crescent

       the starlings of Asda Ibrox

                the herring gulls of Govan Cross


are all primally Glaswegian -


   The Yoker swans

          the Kelvin herons

                 the blackbirds of those interstitial spaces -

are all fundamentally seasoned

by this west-coast air.


An understanding of these birds,

    the geese of Glasgow Green

           the falcons of Finnieston

                the crows of supermarket car-parks

the magpies!

is crucial to my understanding of Glasgow -


The visiting redwings

the elusive waxwings

the whooper swans

and pink-feeted geese

crucial

to my understanding of world -