Poem of War

A yellow bird,
With a yellow bill,
Sat upon
My window sill!

I lured him in,
With a piece of bread,
And then I smashed,
his fucking head!

I scooped him up,
In a dixie cup,
and then I drank,
That fucker up!

The moral of,
This story goes,
to get some head,
You need some bread!

– Traditional U.S Army Marching Cadence

This is the mentality of war; no mercy or sorrow. Just a job that has to be done. The title of the book is called The Yellow Birds. But what does the yellow bird stand for?  What would this little creature stand for?

In many books and movies, a yellow bird stands for joy; a positive outlook of the world. It may be that in war, joy is a luxury you can’t afford. It even says in the poem that they drank the bird in a dixie cup. There are many versions of these poems and some use a cat and ends in a horrible, furless cat. But perhaps the bird means his friend Murph. Bartle promises to protect him but fails to do so and has that apathetic heart. Or perhaps the innocent civilians are the yellow birds. Joyful, yet must endure suffering. Though I believe that the author wrote this poem in the beginning to show that someone, who brings joy, will die. And how will the soldiers react? Indifferent.