The Song of Siskin
Poets have always responded to war by writing poetry — it’s what we do. Following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia on 24th February this year people started sending The Friday Poem their poems about the war — poems about resistance, poems of protest, and poems about specific individuals affected by the fighting. These are stories of courage, grief and hope. We decided to publish some every week as Friday Poems for Ukraine. Here’s ‘The Song of Siskin’ by Mark Russell. Slava Ukraini!
The Song of Siskin
On the day the Russian government try to tell us
That pictures of bound and executed civilians
Are faked by Ukraine to bolster world support,
Siskin return to my feeders in the front garden.
They feast loudly on the free Sonnenblumenkern.
A couple sit on the peanut tube that pine martens
Have hoisted up and onto the table in the night.
Chaffinch, nuthatch, great and blue tits join them.
When I stretch and scratch my scalp, they scatter
Into the wind, all but one, a female, pale with dark
Streaks, but clearly sensible and the least gullible.
She sits and stares at me, as if I am a gigantic liar.
‘семян подсолнечника’ she sings. ‘Get it right,
Pronounce it right, semyan podsolnechnika’.