Our hands move
Stir the dark
Reflect the light
emanating from her skin,
from the dusky spill
of her hair
Where she sits –
luminous, aglow –
in a high-backed chair
carved of ebony
Our hands –
pale moths winging
about her flameless
conflagration –
shift the aromatic
dark
Aflutter
Replicating her glow,
her light.
— C.Birde, 8/21
“Go,
Stray,
Wander
as you must &
as you need…”
Her voice vined,
fruited
with wild grapes.
“When you return,
I will
astonish.”
— C.Birde, 8/21
There –
there it is…
Rub of grit
Scrape of coal
Shard
at the center
of all things
Grief
in the rose’s
soft pleated heart
Unease
in summer’s blue
unclouded sky
Gather it up,
this unfledged
wisdom
Safeguard &
croon to it
Greet it gently &
grant it
a safe space
to root &
grow.
— C.Birde, 8/21
She made no sound
Waited to be seen
within the flameless
burning bush
Shadow on shadow
Soot and smoke
Avian stroke of song
unsung
Each note contained
nested in gray breast
Then, as suddenly, seen
— a revelation perched
on gray-green twist
of twig.
— C.Birde, 7/21
No sooner
had they fallen,
that trembling sphere
of cicadas held immobile
& enmeshed in spider’s
webs;
Fallen & scattered
in arcane pattern strewn
over squares of white linen
spread over tar-papered
roof;
An arcane pattern
of gleeful arthropods
rewriting their future
as unbound individuals &
collective;
No sooner
had they fallen
into newfound freedom,
than they began,
in a grinning profusion
of pale pink petals,
to b l o o m.
— C.Birde, 7/21
“Hold me —
always —
in your heart…”
She smoothed
fern-laced fingertips
over my brow.
“…for those moments
when it all
feels
too
much.”
— C.Birde, 7/21
Leave them.
Leave them here,
near the white marble
countertop –
paring knife
sweet potato
woman.
Attend, instead,
to the anger,
the flint & spark
of charged words.
Attend
the grief & fear,
the ceaseless fall
of tears.
Follow this unhappy tide –
jaw set
ears attuned
heart clenched
Follow
toward the table
spread with white cloth,
chairs pushed in
to contain that
which lies beneath,
within…
Avoid
the hand that shoots out
from this self-made cage
to grasp at calf,
at ankle…
Grasp
that hand & s-q-u-e-e-z-e
until those fine,
timeworn bones protest,
the hand itself struggles
to retract…
Demand –
c-r-u-n-c-h,
c-r-a-c-k –
demand
that he release the child
he traps beneath.
In exchange,
release your grip.
Exit,
tousle-haired child
weeping against
your neck’s curve,
balanced on
your hip.
— C.Birde, 7/21
“I am vast,
expansive…
I am the smallest
of small…”
She tilted
a smile.
“I am
– like you –
a pleasant contradiction
of selves.”
— C.Birde, 7/21
“Come,”
he said,
and lead me out
beneath the bee tree’s dome.
We stood together,
wreathed
in sweet saturated scent and
downward-descending drift
of apiarian song woven through
that namesake tree’s
flower-pricked upswept
boughs.
And we were one,
and we were one,
and we are ever
one.
— C.Birde, 6/21
Apiarian hum among
spirea wands as bees
– carelessly, casually –
rearrange clusters of
blushing flowerheads
to their liking.
— C.Birde, 6/21