Bird in the Classroom

The students drowsed and drowned

in the Teacher's ponderous monotone -

limp bodies loping in the wordy heat,

melted and run together, desk and flesh as one.

swooning and swimming in a sea of drone.

Each one asleep, swayed and vaguely drifted

with lidded eyes and lolling weighted heads,

were caught on heavy waves and dimly lifted,

sunk slowly, ears ringing in the syrup of his sound,

or borne from the room on a heaving wilderness of beds.

And then on a sudden, a bird's cool voice

punched out song. Crisp and spare

on the startled air,

beak-beamed

or idly tossed,

each note gleamed

like a bead of frost.

A bird's cool voice from a neighbour's tree

with five clear calls -  mere grains of sound

rare and neat

repeated twice

but they sprang from the heat

like drops of ice.

Ears cocked, before the comment ran

fading and chuckling where a wattle stirred,

the students wondered how they could have heard

such dreary monotone from a man, and

such wisdom from a bird.