During my first read of Meyers, “The Dark Birds”, the first thing I noticed was the rhyme pattern. It was even the first thing I wrote down when annotating. Every stanza only has two lines and the first and second line rhyme with each other. I also noticed that when read out loud the poem is very smooth sounding. My brain automatically jumped to the conclusion, even before thinking for one second about what the title even may mean, that this poem was about an experience at the beach. But as I was going back through my poetry notebook for this class, I realized that when I jump to conclusions after only one read, my interpretation of the poem never ends up making sense or fitting the entire poem. So instead I chose to read this poem through a different lens. I read it out loud, to my mom, and my dad, and suddenly became very confused. This confusion left me to investigate the poem “The Dark Birds” even further.
After only one additional read, I found something that was perplexing. This was in the second stanza when Meyers says “they walked in Hebrew”. This was something that threw me off because I knew originally that Hebrew was a language that was used in biblical times. But the reason this threw me off was because I was confused how birds
could walk in a language. Then I looked up pictures of the Hebrew language and found that the alphabet itself is very detailed and when put together resembles artwork. Something that baffled me was that Hebrew is written from right to left. This means that the birds were walking from right to left as well. From this, I inferred that the speaker of the poem was someone who didn’t fit in with the societal norm.
When the poem transitions into the next stanza (stanza 3) the detail about the road gave me difficulty. Meyers writes, “ .. the sea flowed, though no one made a road” (line 6). My immediate reaction to this was that the tide when washing in 
and out was leaving any mark of shells or indents in the sand where you could tell it was washing. But, it states that “no one made a road”. I wondered originally who the “no one” may be. Was it the other people who occupied the beach? Was it the speaker’s friends? When I continued to read on I realized that the speaker was referencing a time they were alone. There is never a time in the poem the speaker says we. It only mentions “I”, “me”, and “my” and it does so five different times.
This is a picture of an urn.
Another detail of the poem that distracted me during my first and second read was the metaphor, “Then as I felt the bird return to me like ashes to an urn” (lines 9 and 10). THIS ISN’T EVEN A FULL SENTENCE! Many people argue that ashes belong in an urn and that this is a practical practice. I would also agree with this. But this wasn’t the part I was confused about. I was confused about how the metaphor itself made sense. I asked myself: Why are the birds meant to be with the speaker? Especially when the speaker couldn’t understand the birds.
Something that I noticed in one of my final reads is that it is almost as if key details are missing within the last two stanzas of the poem. For example, each of the stanzas ends in a period, except the fifth stanza. Instead, the fifth stanza ends in a comma after the incomplete sentence regarding the “urn”. Also, each stanza begins with a capital letter; except the sixth stanza. For the poem to contradict itself at the end of one of the stanzas and the beginning of the next stanza, makes me question whether or not as readers Meyers is begging for us to read in between the lines or rather the fifth and sixth stanzas are meant to be read together.
The last line which is supposed to be the end of the poem is what gave me the absolute most difficulty in coming to any sort of conclusion about what this poem is about. It ends in such an abrupt and in such an unpleasant way that made me question all the details I had figured out in the beginning. But the more I read this single line the more it made me 
think. The last stanza includes two important words that the way Meyers is writing it sounds like the two are happening simultaneously. These two words are “sunlight” and “fire”. When the two words are compared they are two completely different things and can be gone about in two different ways. Sunlight could be avoided but once a fire starts it can’t be. Also, sunlight makes you tan but a fire is capable of burning you. At first, I thought that this meant that the speaker was burnt alive but now I believe that the fire undressing the speaker’s bones was actually a representation of someone exposing their true self. Do you know that common expression true to the core? I believe that by saying “fire undressed my bones”, Meyers is trying to express this same sort of thing. The birds coming back allowed the speaker to expose her true self.
After many readings of “The Dark Birds” and many moments debating my ability to sort through the many underlying meanings of any sort of poem, I had one question remaining; what do the birds represent? I am not sure I will ever fully understand the true meaning of this poem but I have come to my best guess. I feel as though the birds represent the people who stand by us through the hard times and push us to be ourselves. Just like the birds came back and the speaker felt a sense of belonging, when we surround ourselves with the right people we are capable of so much more.
Hey Abby! I liked how you chose a rhyming poem. I feel like poems that rhyme often feel kind of cheesy to me (maybe I’m just reading bad rhyming poems, though), but your poem didn’t seem like simple, cliche, and meaningless rhymes. I think in poems like this, rhyming cuplets are super efficient in conveying the complexity of the poem while also trying to maintain a easily understandable plot. I also thought it was funny that you talked about how you jump to conclusions because it makes me remember some of our table group discussions and all three of us having different interpretations. While it’s important to take your time and think, your own understand of a poem is important, too. I loved the line about the birds walking in Hebrew because it’s one of those lines that I could spend my entire life trying to come up with but never could. I could instantly tell, also using your picture, that hebrew kind of looks like birds footprints, but your point about the WAY hebrew is written is really clever. This poem also left me fairly confused. I felt the obvious shift at the last sentence but struggled to connect what it meant. I think the speakers familiarity or relationship with the birds could speak to the message of the poem. In the beginning, he didn’t know who they were, but now they are returning to him.
Abby,
Unlike the other two poems/analyses done by our peers I read before this, I am instead jumping right into your analysis after only truly reading the poem one time through. This process didn’t do me much justice in understanding the poem, no hate on you, I just didn’t have any of my ideas to compare to yours. Nonetheless, there were a couple of things that stood out to me as confusing and notable upon my first read, two of those things you noted. The first was the fluidity of the structure. Meyes’ diction choice and structure led to a very eerily fluid poem. It reminded me of a sonnet, the way everything rhymes and flows, establishing this sense of togetherness or understanding when, in reality, the meaning lies much deeper than what is on the surface. I feel as if that is what happened here with both me and you. Although with me, I thought the emphasis was on the birds and what they represent and not the sea as you thought. The second thing you and I both caught was the line “fire undressed my bones”. In my case, during my first read, I also grouped that with the line right before that about how sunlight is warming the stones. Then for him to say that fire is undressing his bones, it seems as if he is laid out on these stones and is being burned alive by the sun, almost like an ant, or a bird being roasted to eat. I thought that this “undressing” could also be revealing his true self. But, I also thought that this was to show the tight connection between man and nature, more specifically man and bird.
Hey Abby! I’m happy to be back to visit your blog again. I decided as part of reading your analysis I would first take it upon myself to read the poem and try to figure it out for myself. Lets just say that I was left super confused to begin with, but was able to pick up on some similar choices that you mentioned. However, one thing that I did notice was how the poem mentioned how the birds walked in Hebrew, and the Hebrew writing kind of looks like the imprint of a bird’s foot. I’m not fully positive that this connects at all to the overall meaning of the poem, but I can see the connection between the two ideas. Now moving on to the actual useful analysis starting with the rhymes; not only does it make the poem sound smooth as you read it, but I also think it could possibly represent how it could be easier to express your true self instead of trying to hide it. One part of the poem that I am still trying to figure out for myself is the inclusion of the urn. Just like you mentioned this phrase is not even a complete sentence, but I am wondering if the choice of using an object associated with death alludes to the idea of one killing off their fake self to be true. I think you did a great job trying to understand this poem, and who knows, maybe it is about bird feet!
Hey, Abby! I enjoyed reading your analysis of “The Dark Birds”. I had a very similar experience when I initially read it. The rhyme scheme really stuck out to me, and it felt like the type of poem that would be nice to read out loud. I think it’s great that you decided to read it to your parents because you can perceive the poem and its nuances in a different way. It’s clear that you worked hard to interpret the poem to the best of your abilities. I didn’t know that Hebrew was written from right to left. After you mentioned that and included an image, I viewed the poem differently. I also agree that Meyers seems to be exposing her true self toward the end. While reading your post, I found myself jumping between your analysis and the poem itself. Reading your thought process helped me interpret the poem in a new way. I like how you ended your post by admitting that you may never know the true meaning of the poem, yet you still have your own interpretation and worked hard to find a message. I enjoyed reading your train of thought while analyzing this poem, and I loved how you posed questions along the way.