THE SINGING

There’s a bird crying outside, or maybe calling, anyway it goes on and on
without stopping, so I begin to think it’s my bird, my insistent
I, I, I that today is so trapped by some nameless but still relentless longing
that I can’t get any further than this, one note clicking metronomically
in the afternoon silence, measuring out some possible melody
I can’t begin to learn. I could say it’s the bird of my loneliness
asking, as usual, for love, for more anyway than I have; I could as easily call it
grief, ambition, knot of self that won’t untangle, fear of my own heart. All
I can do is listen to the way it keeps on, as if it’s enough just to launch a voice
against stillness, even a voice that says so little, that no one is likely to answer
with anything but sorrow, and their own confusion. I, I, I, isn’t it the sweetest
sound, the beautiful, arrogant ego refusing to disappear? I don’t know
what I want, only that I’m desperate for it, that I can’t stop asking.
That when the bird finally quiets I need to say it doesn’t, that all afternoon
I hear it, and into the evening; that even now, in the darkness, it goes on.

Kim Addonizio

--

1. The bird in this poem might be called The Bird of Yearning, or The Bird of Longing. Would you say that the things, people, or the experiences that you have yearned for or desired in your life thus far have been consistent over time, the same things over time? Is there a kind of “thread” to your yearning/longing heart in some way? Or do you think the yearning and the longing is more specific to our context as well as where we are in life?
2. There seems to be a suggestion in some way that if we can “break free“ of the wanting self (I, I, I), that believes it “deserves” or should have access to something or someone, or some kind of experience, we might be a little bit freer? Do you agree? How might this be accomplished?
3. Why do you think that some of us, including the speaker of this poem, feel that we don’t really get the love that we need? Is it a matter of expectations being too high, or something else?
4. Do you agree that “ all we can do is listen to [this inner voice], to the way way it keeps on,” recognising that “it’s enough just to launch a voice
5. against stillness, even a voice that says so little, that no one is likely to answer
   with anything but sorrow, and their own confusion.” Should we expect more than this, or is this about as good as it gets?
6. What is “sweet“ about this “beautiful, arrogant ego” of the I, I, I? It doesn’t feel particularly sweet, and often we experience it in ourselves as painful and equally when it is being foisted on us by others.
7. What do you think the poem is asking us to do with regard to the mind when it sees the world through this lens of lack or yearning?

--

Intro & Exit music: God Only Knows (piano cover) by Sangah Noona

Please support Sangah's work by subscribing to her wonderful YouTube channel