Sunday, May 13, 2018

The Bird Mark 7 Respirator - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Okay, a poem about a machine is suspiciously redolent of Socialist Realism, but I’m not ready to write an ode to a tractor factory.

The Bird Mark 7 Respirator

In memory of Forrest Bird, who saved the lives of millions

A little Bird, singing all through the night
A plastic box of green mechanicals
Its soft, subtle hiss-click there breathing life
Into and through the wreckages of boys

Americans, mostly, Vietnamese
Koreans, Cambodians, Lao, Hmong
And one who might have been a Russian (shhhhh….) -
The pretty Bird sang in their languages

And when they woke, the soft song that they heard
Was whispered to them by a little green Bird

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