To The Hearing by Tsvety and Petio Petev

Blackbird:

No man’s land can be the finest field
If you have been where I’ve been.
How can the oldest wine be so hard to drink?
If mean can be double, I think.

No orchard has the finest birds
And that’s not a foul deed, my friend.
Birds singing can be the finest word
But only to the hearing.

Bluebird:

To the hearing? - Is that ALL?
There's autumn, did you know?
There's no birds - leaves must fall...
And the birds in cages of snow -
There's winter, did you know?
What you hear is the blizzards.

There's spring and summer, did you know?
There's stars in skies - they glisten.
There's songs to hear, did you know?
Songs to hear and to LISTEN.


Blackbird:

Mean is hearing if you don’t
And it’s birds singing if you recognize it.
The seasons have nothing in common at all
It’s the hearing that connects them.

Bluebird:

In order to be mute the bird must eat much glue!!!
Out of the black and into the blue.
Out of the winter and into the spring.
What can a bird do instead of to sing?
Who cares about seasons when there's one to sing?
And another question - what the seasons bring?
It’s not the hearing that makes connection!
It’s the song that makes the hearing.
Some birds die of deep affection.
And no birds - no song - no hearing.

Blackbird:

Here’s a clue - to glue the seasons
Can be hard without a bird
It’s true about the black ‘n’ blue
But what has the song of the lonely bird
With it to do?

Bluebird:

Chants and hymns and mantras
Birds - black when lonely
Blue - when sing
You must be a deaf blind nerd
Not to know why do they do it?
Here's my clue - who orders pizza?
Pizza is for hungry people,
Songs for others - souls above,
Songs for one who seeks one love.

Singers sing in spring sun bubbles
Cause their lovers love them doubles.
Out of the black, into the blue -
Do you need another clue?

Blackbird:

Need another clue, alright
But not about the why they do -
This is known to everyone.
But how can one recognize the blue
If one has never heard a bird
Singing like you do…

Blackbird:

Do not confuse the hearing with the seeing
They sound familiar however
The hearing cannot be seen by the ordinary
And this is why no man’s land is a treasure
To the little black birds that sing for
And die of deep affection.

Bluebird:

So men don't hear? Do you think?
A man is blind inside his deeps?
A man is winter for the bird?
The little bird's song cannot leap?
The little bird is so affected...
A pole of pain it gets errected...
But that's A man, not every man's land.
Don't die!
There's something you neglected.

Blackbird:

Out of the black, into the blue:
The hearing of joint singing
Is surely what makes a bluebird –
Neglect then has lost its meaning.
Then out of no man’s land
A black bird is taken.


25 March 2003