Gift Box Turtle —
red-jasper-eyed,
wrapped
in gold scrawl
and east-morning
light.
Our paths crossed
at the trail’s
edge –
the gift,
was all
mine.
— C.Birde, 5/18
Gift — An Image
Returned — A Poem
Like a young
creek –
bouncing & jaunty,
erratic;
Like morning
light –
spangled & bright,
yet vaporous;
His song
accompanies dawn,
trips through the air,
& g l i d e s through
the second-story
window
to announce
his arrival…
Spring is absolute
now
Catbird is
returned.
— C.Birde, 5/18
Smitten — An Image
With each bud
and bloom
and bead of rain
and light,
Spring saturates
the senses,
leaves me
smitten.
— C.Birde, 4/18
Forest in Hand — A Poem
Back bowed
to warming sun;
knees pressed
to earth –
withdraw each
tender seedling
from crisp,
sweet
leaf litter;
tug at that
connection,
at each pale,
elongated
stem and root
until –
unwilling –
the fibers
release.
Each pliant,
wrinkled leaf
a world
of innate
potential.
One hundred.
Two hundred.
Three…
To right,
moving headfirst
down the
parent tree,
Nuthatch watches,
mutters,
while Chickadee,
to left,
muses over
nest sites.
Rise,
forest in hand.
Determined
proliferation
of life
gathered,
in a small,
bouquet
of youngling
green.
— C.Birde, 4/18
Prayer — An Image
Cool light,
bright air —
slide along and
tickle
each rough–barked,
leafless branch
to
wakening.
— C.Birde, 4/18
Riot — A Poem
Those few and
too short
weeks of Spring —
a-brim
with mirth —
when all
beneath
the greening skin
is laughter.
— C.Birde, 4/18
Beak & Hood — An Image
Thermogenic.
Content
in the company
of scavenging insects.
The lowly and marvelous
skunk cabbage
lifts beak and
mottle-hooded bloom
as –
year by year –
contractile roots drill
beyond its bed of mud
and deeper into
earth.
— C.Birde, 4/18
Confirmation — A Poem
A pair of crows –
fragments of night,
dark clad and
shining –
pluck the maple’s
red confetti
blooms.
Pass below.
Scatter robins
through last year’s
fallen leaves.
Bound and bonded
to earth,
accept the drift
of sooty corvid voices,
of scarlet petals –
blessings of slow
progress.
— C.Birde, 4/18
Furled — An Image
Despite the calendar’s
declaration,
snow dusts
the crocus’ tight-
furled
petals.
— C.Birde, 4/18
Scales — A Poem
A day’s scale —
dusk through dawn —
is measured
in slim increments,
felt
like a sigh
against the ear.
Reach.
Extend.
Glide through
the arc of notes
unnamed and
never
out
of
tune.
— C.Birde, 3/18