Frances McGonigle

Two Wings

 

For the House Sparrow, in Decline

 

"Your numbers fall and it’s tempting to think

you’re deserting our suburbs and estates

like your cousins at Pompeii: that when you return

to bathe in dust and build your nests again

in a roofless world where no one hears your cheeps

only a starling’s modem mimicry

will remind you of how you once supplied

the incidental music of our lives"                                    Paul Farley

 

“To illustrate…when a caged bird sings, birds who are flying in the sky are thereby summoned and gather around, and when the birds in the sky gather around, the bird in the cage strives to get out.”

 

“With a pair of wings you will surely fly in an instant to the treasure land of tranquil light”

 

“A bird’s egg contains nothing but liquid, yet by itself this develops into a beak, two eyes and all the other parts, and the bird soars into the sky…when nurtured by the chanting of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, which is like the warmth of the mother bird”