Duval’s Birds
Conrad Aiken
The parrot, screeching, flew out into the darkness,
Circled three times above the upturned faces
With a great whir of brilliant outspread wings,
And then returned to stagger on her finger.
She bowed and smiled, eliciting applause …
The property man hated her dirty birds.
But it had taken years – yes, years – to train them,
To shoulder flags, strike bells by tweaking strings,
Or climb sedately little flights of stairs.
When they were stubborn, she tapped them with a wand,
And her eyes glittered a little under the eyebrows.
The red one flapped and flapped on a swinging wire;
The little white ones winked round yellow eyes.
About this poem
“Duval’s Birds” was published in “Turns and Movies, and Other Tales in Verse” (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916).
About Conrad Aiken
Conrad Aiken was born in Savannah, Ga., on Aug. 5, 1889. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his book “Selected Poems” (1929) and the National Book Award for “Collected Poems” (1953). Aiken died in Savannah in 1973.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
This poem is in the public domain. Distributed by King Features Syndicate
