You think, perhaps, that
it is easy to be mad;
“Farewell, Reason! I’m
off; I’ve slipped your chain.”
I tell you it is not.
Three years, seven months,
Six days I have followed
Sweeny, who was King
And now lives in trees.
Madness, like much else,
Takes practice. For the
first six months, Sweeny
Could understand never a
word the birds said
And feared their endless
tweeting would drive him sane.
He could fly as soon as
he and reason parted
But was clumsy at it,
crashing into trees,
Perching awkwardly at
night, liable to fall.
He flies well now;
threading through the forest
Listening to the curlews
and laughing at their jokes
(His courtesy is royal;
curlews’ humor is dull).
His dreams tell him he
will be king again
Unable to flutter a foot
above the ground.
I prepare against that
day.
One morning I woke on
the ground
Which is where I
accustomedly sleep
And found Sweeny gone. From
the branch
Where he had roosted
for the night, a cuckoo
With strange markings
stared at me, bright-eyed.
Two hawks perched
beside him, stiff and glaring.
In Sweeny’s service you
grow used to odd sights
Nor did it seem amiss
when the right-hand hawk said
“In the presence of an
emperor, it is customary to kneel
Until he bids you
rise.”
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