Poetry Monday

The Parakeets

by Alberto Blanco
translated by W. S. Merwin


They talk all day


and when it starts to get dark

they lower their voices

to converse with their own shadows

and with the silence.



They are like everybody

—the parakeets—

all day chatter,

and at night bad dreams.



With their gold rings

on their clever faces,

brilliant feathers

and the heart restless

with speech...



They are like everybody,

—the parakeets—

the ones that talk best

have separate cages.




*As much as I wanted a dog growing up, we lived in apartments where it was too hard to keep one. I did however have several parakeets with amazingly distinctive personalities. Casey bird was my first, followed by Rio, Dove, Sunshine & Storm. This poem reminded me quite a bit of them.