“You cannot pursue
that which is
beside you,
within you,
of you.”
She gentled each word
with a dose of sweet rain.
“You can only sit with it
& offer it
your whole
compassionate
heart.”
— C.Birde, 10/20
Advice — An Image
In Shadow — A Poem
Together,
apart.
We sit beneath
& within
the cool blue-green shade
of the great spruce tree,
with coffee &
grief &
glee,
& we feed all who come –
chipmunk & squirrel,
tufted titmouse,
jay & red-belly.
Hearts brimming,
undone,
we feed all who come.
Apart,
together.
My sister
& me.
— C.Birde, 10/20
A Question of Shadows — A Dream
They stand — all four of them — in a line;
shoulder to shoulder;
on green-grass sward in fading sunlight;
facing me…
No instruments in hand –
neither mandolin nor fiddle nor cello;
no guitar, no bass, no banjo…
Empty hands clasped together before them,
they stand — all four of them — in a line;
shoulder to shoulder;
on a green-grass sward in fading sunlight;
facing me…
Or is it a photo?
An antique square snapshot,
grown milky with age,
colors evaporating into a wriggle-edged white border
that frames them,
those four young men?
The lighting is wrong, the shadows off…
A dark circle pools at their feet,
conforming to no fixed source, natural or otherwise,
while simultaneously,
their cast shadows stretch from them,
toward me,
so long and lean and solid,
surely,
I should feel the weight of their touch,
heavy as silence…
— C.Birde, 10/20
Queen — An Image
“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
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
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
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
Thornapple — An Image
“Admire my lines,
my wanton form & tumble;
inhale my scent, hypnotic…
But be forewarned,” she said
“Press your teeth
not to my throat;
neither pluck nor bruise me;
else risk both thorn
& poison.”
— C.Birde, 8/20