Just after sunrise,
I hear it, the bright airy trill
of the red-winged blackbird—
and before my eyes
are even open,
I feel a wild resonance
with the waking world,
the certainty I belong
to this day with its rising sun
and scent of green grass,
its breeze reaching in
through the screens;
I belong to this day
with my creature heart
that already this morning
longs to hold what it cannot,
longs to comfort others,
even knowing how
sorrow must be felt.
I belong to the song
of the red-winged blackbird
as it calls out again,
belong to the silence
as he waits for an answer.
And waits. And waits.
I belong to the spring
every bit as much
as I belong to winter.
This is perhaps
the conundrum of love,
no matter how strong the ache,
we still belong
to the world of beauty,
this world that calls to us
even in our sleep,
wakes us with a promise
strung like audible garland
across the dawn—
you belong, you belong.
Posts Tagged ‘bird’
May Morning
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belonging, bird, morning, red-winged blackbird on May 18, 2022| 12 Comments »
Evolution
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, choice, past, self on May 1, 2022| 7 Comments »
There comes a time when
the life you have
meets the life you once had
and you stare at that old life
as if it’s a beautiful bird
with a haunting song so familiar
you can’t stop yourself
from singing along.
Isn’t it strange
how quickly things change,
how already you’ve forgotten
some of the words.
How already, your wings
have changed color.
This Season
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, cold, grief, song, winter on January 17, 2022| 8 Comments »
It is true, every day
brings a sadness—
sometimes like a blizzard,
sometimes like sleet,
sometimes like a clear morning
of fifteen below,
but I do not wish any of it away.
On the coldest mornings here,
the birds that choose to stay
fluff up their feathers
to trap in the chill air,
warming it with their own bodies
until it becomes their insulation.
This is, perhaps, how it is with grief—
by holding it close,
it transforms from something
that would hurt me
to something I infuse
with my own being,
thus becoming something
that allows me to survive.
It would be wrong
to say I like it. But I hear
how, with every day,
it is teaching me
a new way to sing.
Learning from the Robins
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, Christmas, community, flock, robin, survival on December 26, 2021| 6 Comments »
It’s Christmas and the yard,
grassy again from unseasonal rain,
is abloom with dozens of robins—
robins flitting and bobbing
and weaving unpredictable paths
with their dark gray wings.
They seem harbingers
of an unexpected spring,
as if life is asking them to be more alive
just when it seems as if
everything is dead.
How could I be more alive?
I love that these birds know
how to survive—love that
come winter, they flock.
Because more eyes means
more chances to spot food.
Because more eyes means
fewer chances to become food themselves.
I, too, have been flocking
this winter—surrounding myself
with other eyes, other hearts,
other wings, other minds.
It feels good to be one of many,
to trust my kind. It feels good
to fly together for this
tenderest time. The truth is,
it isn’t easy. The truth is,
we were made for this.
Becoming the Bird
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, emily dickinson, grief, hope, wind on November 14, 2021| 13 Comments »
Once on a bridge
I had met a hope,
a radiant maybe,
a glint of perhaps,
but I am so far
from that glint today
that when I stand
again on that bridge
I almost hate hope
with its stupid wings,
always promising
to carry us toward
something better.
I stand on that bridge
and stand on that bridge,
my inner perch
empty, silent.
I turn to face
the autumn wind.
It batters my bare skin.
I sing full-throat into the gale.
*This poem is in conversation with Emily Dickinson’s famous poem, “Hope is the thing with feathers …” which you can find here
How the Healing Happens
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, book, friendship, gift, grief, healing on October 16, 2021| 6 Comments »
for Paul Fericano and so many others
I turn first to the chapter
on techniques for broken wings.
I learn of contour splints and anchor tape
and reasons why most broken wings
should not be completely immobilized.
I am not so unlike an injured bird.
Struck down by grief, I too, am unable to fly.
Even walking, I find I’m off balance.
I’m best treated without an audience.
I heal best with absolute calm.
I was unsure at first why my friend
would have sent me—along with tea,
chocolate, crackers and sweet biscuits—
a book on “kitchen healing:”
how to treat injured wildlife at home.
But there beneath the image
of a simple wing break, I read,
a sentence like a prophecy:
“Nature starts the healing process
almost as soon as the injury occurs.”
And I feel, to my surprise,
the tender places where the bones
of my wings no longer protrude.
And though my joints are rigid,
with supports, I’m recovering.
And I am thankful for all the hands of friends—
unskilled, untrained, yet willing to try.
Hands that send letters and blankets
and feathers and books. Calm hands
that help heal these fractures until I can fly.
*Quote from Care of the Wild Feathered & Furred: A Guide to Wildlife Handling & Care by Mae Hickman and Maxine Guy (Unity Press, 1973)
At the Houston Zoo
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belonging, bird, home, nest, pigeon, zoo on July 13, 2021| 2 Comments »
Not the chuckwalla
nor the cheetah nor the capybara,
it was the pigeon
I couldn’t stop watching
as it sat on its nest
in the tall sturdy grass
beside the glassed-in walls
of the chimpanzees
with its fluffy grey chicks
tucked against its grey breast.
She looked as if she belonged
exactly where she was—oh
how I cherish that feeling.
The Lover of Uncertainty Confesses
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, certainty, uncertainty on April 19, 2021| 2 Comments »
Certainty is a frigatebird,
able to soar on the wind for weeks,
its nest a distant thing.
Is it wrong to say I admire it,
sleek and raven feathered,
how it dives from the sky
with exquisite precision,
how it steals what it wants
with no regard for what’s fair.
I have wanted to be that certain,
wanted to take, wanted to believe
my hunger is all that matters.
Is it wrong to notice these thoughts,
to give voice to their midnight wings?
I say I trust what I don’t know.
Meanwhile, I flirt with certainty.
It whispers to me,
I’m the other truest thing.
One Lifetime
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, death, life, red wing blackbird, spring on March 18, 2021| Leave a Comment »
on the way to the graveyard
taking a few detours through spring—
trill of red wing blackbirds
On a Full Moon Night
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, bird song, moon, owl on February 27, 2021| 2 Comments »
The three-note song of the owl
opens the night
with a single repeated note.
Hoo hoo hoo.
Listening for the song again,
I find myself opening to silence.
Then there it is:
Hoo hoo hoo.
Scientists say
the owl is sending a message:
This is mine,
my territory, my space.
But instead of being repelled,
I’m pulled in.
I sing back to the owl
three resonant notes.
Hoo hoo hoo.
Not to stake my territory.
More out of admiration
for the power of a simple song.
It teaches me to trust
what is artless,
how sometimes simplicity
is what allows others, like me,
to sing along.
Lesson from the Ouzel
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, courage, despair, ouzel, showing up on January 7, 2021| 5 Comments »
Sometimes I want to be anywhere but here,
but today, I let myself feel it all.
I go to the river covered in ice,
and move along the bank until
I find the open places where the dark-feathered ouzel
chooses to submerge in the cold, cold water—
It doesn’t hesitate to plunge into frigid depths.
It knows it was made for this.
Instructions for Perseverance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, chickadee, perseverance on December 19, 2020| 5 Comments »
Think less: Trust your inner animal.
—Holiday Mathis, Horoscopes by Holiday, December 19, 2020
It’s the chickadee
that saves me today.
Though the world
gets cold, the chickadee
stays. Despite snow.
Despite frost. Despite
lack of sun,
it doesn’t leave
the winter land.
Oh, tough little bird
who sticks around,
who thrives
in any weather—
whose cheerful tune
spirals like hope
through the frigid
folds of December
as if to say let it come.
I can sing through
anything.
Let it come.
Getting Ready
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged advent, bird, hawk, joy, kayleen, wonder on November 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »
What might you need to let go of or “clean out” in order to make room for wonder or joy?
—Kayleen Asbo, Advent and the Arts: The Week of Hope
Just today I walked
in the shadows
and noticed how
they scrubbed me
the way silence sometimes
scrubs a room.
Wonder rushed in.
It wasn’t that I was trying
to keep wonder out,
it’s just that with my schedule
and rigor, I hadn’t left it
space to enter.
If only with mop
and broom I could sweep
out anything
that would keep me
from wonder, from joy.
Instead, the world offers
shadow, stillness,
quietude, loss,
and a red-tailed hawk
in the heart,
circling, circling,
wondering what
it might subtract next.
After Reading the Headline About Rising Deaths
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, Corona Virus, courage, garden, resilience, song on May 4, 2020| 3 Comments »
Today I take the courage I don’t feel
and the resilience I doubt and
all my unspent longing to serve,
and I bring them, cupped in my hands,
to the garden. They nestle there in my palms
like three baby birds that have not yet
opened their eyes. I take them to hear
the pungent song of the garlic shoots
and the thriving chives who chant
how to survive the winter.
I bring them to hear the strawberry leaves
who sing how to flourish despite the frost.
and the old song of chicken manure
and composted grass that hum about
how old life begets new life.
And they open their tiny beaks,
as if they could eat the green song.
How vulnerable they are.
So I open to the song, too.
I do what must be done.
I take in the nourishing song,
and feed them with my own mouth.
Here
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged be here now, bird, Corona Virus, listening, presence, song on March 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Even as the snow was falling,
the birds in the branches
kept singing into morning,
easing their bright notes
into the thin gray spaces
between snowflakes.
There are days, imagine,
when the birds go unheard.
And it isn’t for lack of song—
the single note chirp
of sparrow, the bass of raven,
the chickadee’s hey swee-tee.
Some gifts come only
when we stay in one place,
come only when we are alone,
come only when we stop praying
to be somewhere else and instead
pray to be here.
Thinking of Sending You a Postcard of the Sunrise Over the Sea
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beach, bird, cormorant, love, sea on February 19, 2020| Leave a Comment »
And while I am at it, I should like to send you
a postcard from the shores of my body,
wish you were here, it is warm and there
are so many places for us to explore
together—but even as I write these words
the letters grow ink dark wings and fly
over the sea, a colony of cormorants,
silent as they soar, and I a beach with no footprints,
the waves lapping, everywhere the scent, the sting of salt.
Chickadee, dee, dee in Three
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, chickadee, cold, importance, priorities, three word lines on February 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »
And so, although
there’s so much
work to do,
I step outside
and let February
have its way
with me—cold,
dusted with snow.
Hard to believe
anything can grow.
But singing high
in cottonwood trees
are the chickadees.
It’s not hard
to think, This
is the most
important thing I
can do today.
I think it
until I forget
to think it,
until I am
simply standing there
in winter air
pledging my ears
to the sound
of the birds—
such a simple
song. Funny no
part of me
longs for other
work. Funny how
soon it becomes
everything.
Instead of Getting Riled
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Alabama, bird, meditation, pelican, poem, poetry, stillness on December 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The pelican dives
into the water,
rises again. Hovers.
Dives. Rises.
Each time, the water is quick
to forget the intrusion
loses its ripples,
stills. A thought
is a kind of a pelican.
A woman is a kind
of a bay. The pelicans
will always dive.
The bay will always
return to stillness.
A woman might
learn to live this way.