Yesterday I found a bird on the ground outside the window. Remember how I had told you about the two pairs of Bullock’s Orioles at our feeder? It was one of the females. I was too squeamish to pick her up with my bare hands. Someone at some time told me about the bacteria on birds, and like so many other stories, I let it define my actions even though I don’t know that it’s true.
I did pick it up, however, fashioned a little stretcher out of cottonwood sticks and carried the bird to the deep grass.
Though it was at the feeder the day before, already it was gone enough to have lost its eyes, now two little sunken spaces where the head pulled in on itself. But the small body was not yet rigid, and it hung, limp, over the sticks.
I sang a death song, as I always do, sometimes out loud, sometimes in my head. It was taught to me by Art. “Nothing lives long, nothing lives long, nothing lives long, not even the mountain.”
I remember the day Art changed the lyric. For many years, he had sung the final phrase, “nothing lives long but the earth and the mountain.” Perhaps like all things
that are new, it trembled something me. The old words were so comfortable and familiar in my ears, my mouth. I suspect the real reason they shook me was the truth of them. Nothing lives long. Not even the mountain.
How small we are. Sometimes, like yesterday, I let my sadnesses and worries become so big, much bigger than my body. I can’t contain them and they spill. It was beautiful to watch how, on that flood of my sorrow, you found a boat and sat in it and showed me it was possible.
Why did I think the deep grass was a better place for the body of the bird? I didn’t question the voice that told me to take her there. Perhaps we are all heading into the unkempt field, a place where we are open and hidden at the same time.
I watched the other three birds all day as they flew from feeder to cottonwood. They were a braid of song, seldom staying in one place for long.
Nothing lives long. It’s no revelation, but sometimes an old truth finds wings in us. And so it was when you told me yesterday, just before you drove away, that I needed to stop hoping things would change—that I needed to decide if I could be happy with things just as they are. Only minutes later I found the bird. Though the two events didn’t seem connected at the moment, now they are like two drops that become one water.
And so this morning, I join you in the boat. Although it is just a metaphor, I notice that it changes things not to be swimming in the waters of wishing things were different. I notice how there are no oars in the boat, and how part of me longs for control and part of me has already found the freedom to stare at the sky.
And there they are, the three orioles, their yellow feathers flashing as they rearrange the air. And there she isn’t, the oriole now laying in the field.
Later today I will fill the feeder. There are some things we can do.
Your friend,
Rosemerry
Thank you, Rosemerry, for writing and sharing this. Though not verse, it was poetry, and it moved me deeply.
I think I finally wrote an organic prose poem! I have always wondered what the heck a prose poem was and why/how anyone would write one ☺ Love to you, Betsy,
rosemerry
From: “comment-reply@wordpress.com” Reply-To: Date: Monday, May 22, 2017 at 7:08 AM To: Rosemerry Trommer Subject: [A Hundred Falling Veils] Comment: “Dear Christie,”
Thank you, Rosemerry, this is a tale worth telling again, and I will…
Thanks, Rick, sending you big love from the boat on a Monday morning, r
From: “comment-reply@wordpress.com” Reply-To: Date: Monday, May 22, 2017 at 7:12 AM To: Rosemerry Trommer Subject: [A Hundred Falling Veils] Comment: “Dear Christie,”
amazing writing. love it-and you for writing it, and for you being you.
namaste’
Thanks Dear Alan,
You’ve been so in my mind and heart lately,
Sending you big love,
Rosemerry
From: “comment-reply@wordpress.com” Reply-To: Date: Monday, May 22, 2017 at 7:44 AM To: Rosemerry Trommer Subject: [A Hundred Falling Veils] Comment: “Dear Christie,”
¡Ay caramba! There is so much, here. You tapped into a deep subterranean source. When I look more thoroughly look over this poem, I’ll spend pages letting my writing thoughts respond to at least some of its images — you’ve uncovered so many of these images I don’t think I’d be able to respond to all of them, even if I’m ever able to see them all. “I think I finally wrote a prose poem!” you responded to Betsy Small. No thinking needed on this reader’s part — I know, for ’tis screamingly obviously so.
Such a deep connection you show between you and Christie. (Just this very morning, while breakfasting at the B&B counter, I was wondering whether she’d driven back home, night before last. Of course, y’all took advantage of your physical proximity, and she stayed awhile.)
For when you return to this poem, after time away allows it to stand on its own, I have one suggested tweak: In the second-from-last stanza, I suggest removing, “Although it is just a metaphor.” I feel this is one time when speaking a name aloud breaks the spell.
So blest I’ve been, seeing you this LitFest weekend.
Thanks dear Eduardo, and I am always happy for tweak ideas ⦠thanks! Donât want to break the spell!
Xo
r
Watch my TEDx talk The Art of Changing Metaphors: TEDX Rosemerry Trommer
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
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wordwoman.com
Thank you for this profound prose poem honoring what was, what is, and what is yet to be.
Thanks, Joan,
It was very healing to write it,
Xo
r
Watch my TEDx talk The Art of Changing Metaphors: TEDX Rosemerry Trommer
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
970-729-1838
wordwoman.com
From: “comment-reply@wordpress.com” Reply-To: Date: Monday, May 22, 2017 at 6:25 PM To: Rosemerry Trommer Subject: [A Hundred Falling Veils] Comment: “Dear Christie,”
Youâre welcome! All that bendy time stuff ⦠so humbling.
Watch my TEDx talk The Art of Changing Metaphors: TEDX Rosemerry Trommer
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
970-729-1838
wordwoman.com
Synchronicity strikes – read your poem shortly after concluding the one trying to get out of me had completed itself. Now thinking I need to add a reference to yours. Complicated, but your poem becomes one more flash of insight in a steady stream of interruptions, symbols, realities all within 5 days. All to do with aging and “not living long” (whatever “long” might mean) …
I love your letter format. Indeed a prose poem, a beautiful one, a tribute to both the orioles and to friendship.
Could you point me to the lyrics for that death song? Or maybe you’ve included the entirety here?
Thank you!
I think I found it – Nothing Lasts For Long – The Samples (written by Sean Kelly)
Hi Jazz, it is a song I thought Art made up, but maybe not … and those were the entire lyrics there, nothing lives long, nothing lives long, nothing lives long not even the mountain. I could sing it for your answering machine so you could have a record of the very simple tune … ☺ I’m curious about the song you found …
From: “comment-reply@wordpress.com” Reply-To: Date: Tuesday, May 23, 2017 at 9:02 PM To: Rosemerry Trommer Subject: [A Hundred Falling Veils] Comment: “Dear Christie,”
Ooo, please: 512-219-1316
Perhaps The Samples song is a derivative of something older, the song you know. I found a YouTube of the Samples version, which is lovely.
[…] is tweaked: [1] Poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem “Dear Christie”: https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2017/05/22/dear-christie/ [2] Scientific American June 2017 issue, “The Meaning of Lichen” (available in print and […]