Cormorants

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Title:     Cormorants
Author: Eunice Tietjens [More Titles by Tietjens]

The boats of your masters are black;
They are filthy with the slimy filth of ages; like the
    canals on which they float they give forth an evil
    smell.
On soiled perches you sit, swung out on either side over
    the scummy water--you who should be savage
    and untamed, who should ride on the clean breath
    of the sea and beat your pinions in the strong
    storms of the sea.
Yet you are not held.
Tamely you sit and willingly, ten wretches to a boat,
    lurching and half asleep.
Around each throat is a ring of straw, a small ring, so
    that you may swallow only small things, such as
    your masters desire.
Presently, when you reach the lake, you will dive.
At the word of your masters the parted waters will
    close over you and in your ears will be the gurgling
    of yellow streams.
Hungrily you will search in the darkened void, swiftly
    you will pounce on the silver shadow....
Then you will rise again, bearing in your beak the
    struggling prey,
And your lousy lords, whose rings are upon your
    throats, will take from you the catch, giving in its
    place a puny wriggler which can pass the gates of
    straw.
Such is your servitude.
Yet willingly you sit, lurching and half asleep.
The boatmen shout one to another in nasal discords.
    Lazily you preen your great wings, eagle wings,
    built for the sky;
And you yawn....
Faugh! The sight of you sickens me, divers in inland
    filth!
You grow lousy like your lords,
For you have forgotten the sea.
  Wusih

[The end]
Eunice Tietjens's poem: Cormorants

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