“Cherish me,
praise me,
revere me –
or not.
As you will.”
She filtered
light & dark,
wind & rain
as she spoke.
“I will shelter you,
regardless.”
— C.Birde, 9/20
Queen — An Image
Autumn — A Poem
Crickets’ hypnotic trill & hum
Crisp-fizzling leaves & grasses
Hymn of gilt-edged, waning light
Cool air folds up the landscape
Sundials of hearts’ chambers slip
Summer’s flame-crown sputters
Grinning,
dancing,
Autumn comes to burnish
a new measure…
— C.Birde, 9/20
Golem — A Dream
When
earth trembles &
that mantle of unmown grass –
lush &
green &
threaded through
with a purple fringe of wild asters –
separates from the soil of its making
to heave itself up up upright
on hindquarters of loam;
When
that vaguely humanoid shape,
soft-rubbed of keen features,
lurches with thick arms raised & sifting soil
to grope with blind,
blunted,
outstretched hands
like some unfathomably old
newly born golem of earth;
and When,
in umber-and-green-and-purple tide,
the shaken sward returns abruptly
to the soft mud of its recent birth
as if it never was…
Will its voiceless,
mossy,
desperate
roar have penetrated?
or will that thrashing cry have been dismissed
as dream?
— C.Birde, 9/20
Concealed — An Image
“Oh,
dear one,”
she soothed &
sighed &
rustled,
“do not conceal
your tears…
They connect you
to all the world’s
sorrows &
joys…”
— C.Birde, 9/20
Interrupted — A Poem
No longer
can I write here,
beneath the shaded
pergola,
blooming with the hum
of bees and the scent
of Virgin’s Bower
as that flowering vine
casts off its petals
like late summer
snow.
No.
You misunderstand.
It is, now, no less
lovely, no less
pleasant;
but the task of fitting
thoughts to words
and words together
has been usurped.
Wait…
Again,
and yet again –
interruption.
The bowl of peanuts
swiftly empties.
Restraint.
Patience.
Calm.
Fine words, indeed;
but ill-fitted to
a chipmunk’s mouth
and never ceasing
needs.
— C.Birde, 9/20
The Small — An Image
“Show tenderness
toward the small,”
she advised
with sly sideways glance.
“For, ultimately,
you, too, are
small.”
— C.Birde, 9/20
Burden — A Poem
Firm as fact.
Sweet as certainty.
My knife parts velvet skin,
slices through yielding flesh
to bite the channeled stone within.
Each taste, ripe and real.
Triumph over falsehood.
Antitoxin to hate.
Each taste, a tonic to these days
of discord.
Burden me –
O please, I beg you –
burden me with the blessing
of Summer’s remaining peaches,
and I may indeed survive…
Shaken — A Dream
“Don’t shake it.”
He speaks in distracted manner,
as of one who grasps deep understanding
of such things as cell phones –
broken –
that should not rattle & shift within themselves
with shivers of noise in enthralling fashion.
Don’t shake it.
But…
He said nothing of lifting it,
drawing it over lips, teeth, tongue,
feeling that seam incised in its length & sides,
of separating that seam so that gears &
circuitry & delicate inner workings
sift uniformly across the tongue,
crunch between molars, premolars, incisors,
move like coarse sand or grit or powdered glass
past pharynx & larynx
to scrape slowly, finally, at long last
d
o
w
n
the trachea…
He said nothing of this.
Needless warning.
Uncalled for.
Implicitly
understood.
— C.Birde, 8/20
Gasp…! — An Image
In the breath of time
she had graced
this precious Earth,
she had witnessed
the unimaginable…
— C.Birde, 8/20
Who…? — A Poem
Who are we?
We are who we are.
Amorphous collective
stripped down
to bared teeth & bones.
Subjective “known”
transforming
over months
weeks
–night.
Facades peeled &
pared & rendered
unrecognizable.
Who are we?
I know not
myself.
I know
myself
not.
— C.Birde, 8/20