Mrs Nevines’ Bird Sanctuary, Co. Antrim

Mrs Nevines’ bird sanctuary looks at first
Like a meshed community of cages
Where birds get better – or worse,
End up in the world of her glass cases.

At second glance, a white-faced owl
Blinks and pivots at the neck
(From north-north-east to roughly south)
The two halves of a single cheek.

But look again, and what’s revealed
Of Mrs Nevines’ healing work
Is how the sparrow, too, must heal
Fenced in beside the sparrowhawk.

As close against the glint of night
Her stands of birds keep airless watch –
That held the mountains underfoot,
And circled slowly on the lough.

Gabriel Gbadamosi

Gabriel Gbadamosi is an Irish and Nigerian poet, playwright and critic. His London novel Vauxhall (Telegram, 2013) won the Tibor Jones Pageturner Prize and Best International Novel at the Sharjah Book Fair. He was AHRC Creative and Performing Arts Fellow at the Pinter Centre, Goldsmiths in European and African performance; a Judith E. Wilson Fellow for creative writing at Cambridge University; and Writer in Residence at the Manchester Royal Exchange. Plays include Stop and Search (Arcola Theatre, London), Hotel Orpheu (Schaubühne, Berlin), and for radio The Long, Hot Summer of ’76 (BBC Radio 3) which won the first Richard Imison Award. He presented BBC Radio 3’s flagship arts and ideas programme Night Waves and is the founding editor of WritersMosaic. You can visit his personal website at: www.gabrielgbadamosi.com

Mrs Nevines’ Bird Sanctuary, Co. Antrim

Mrs Nevines’ bird sanctuary looks at first
Like a meshed community of cages
Where birds get better – or worse,
End up in the world of her glass cases.

At second glance, a white-faced owl
Blinks and pivots at the neck
(From north-north-east to roughly south)
The two halves of a single cheek.

But look again, and what’s revealed
Of Mrs Nevines’ healing work
Is how the sparrow, too, must heal
Fenced in beside the sparrowhawk.

As close against the glint of night
Her stands of birds keep airless watch –
That held the mountains underfoot,
And circled slowly on the lough.

Gabriel Gbadamosi

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Mrs Nevines’ bird sanctuary looks at first Like a meshed community of cages Where birds get better – or worse, End up in the world of her glass cases.

At second glance, a white-faced owl Blinks and pivots at the neck (From north-north-east to roughly south) The two halves of a single cheek.

But look again, and what’s revealed Of Mrs Nevines’ healing work Is how the sparrow, too, must heal Fenced in beside the sparrowhawk.

As close against the glint of night Her stands of birds keep airless watch – That held the mountains underfoot, And circled slowly on the lough.

Gabriel Gbadamosi

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Subscribe to VoegelinView via Email

Mrs Nevines’ bird sanctuary looks at first
Like a meshed community of cages
Where birds get better – or worse,
End up in the world of her glass cases.

At second glance, a white-faced owl
Blinks and pivots at the neck
(From north-north-east to roughly south)
The two halves of a single cheek.

But look again, and what’s revealed
Of Mrs Nevines’ healing work
Is how the sparrow, too, must heal
Fenced in beside the sparrowhawk.

As close against the glint of night
Her stands of birds keep airless watch –
That held the mountains underfoot,
And circled slowly on the lough.