Amnesiac Winter
paid a brief visit,
confused,
complaining of jet-stream detours,
converging pressures,
ingratitude;
of invitations received late
and mislaid.
Unsettled,
he wandered,
muttering a fog,
flinging fistfuls of hail
over greening lawns and
bruising the blooms
of pink-fringed trees
that had the nerve to flower
in his absence.
— C.Birde
The antique cherry wears a gown of quilt-worked bark.
Weaving through
the misted morn,
through soft-furred edges
of gray chill,
I stirred a cloud of birds —
blackbirds, all.
As one, they rose,
an avian inhalation,
a gasp
of feathered wings;
when I only wish to be
the tree
in whose branches
they might alight.
–C.Birde
I dreamed I stood with my back to Autumn on the eve of Winter, and though I called out, I could not be certain my voice would carry over the noise and clamor of shortening days and encroaching dark.
Despite the graying cold, we threw open the doors, and the house filled with warmth. Cheer and laughter and conversation wove a skein, each thread a shining filament kindled in our hearts that lightly bound us all. We broke chocolate together, and ate sweet-tart kumquats, and swallowed crimson pomegranate seeds. We sipped effervescence and lit the evening with a pale, warm glow that warded darkness.
Scattered about, I found unexpected tokens — owls of wisdom; a likeness in powdery charcoals; tiny cakes; words and raven linked by slim chain; a soft beam of sunlight; edible spells bound in paper; and a tiny, shining, golden dragon.
We parted with smiles and embraces; but the warmth — now fed and strengthened — remained. A dream come true.
I am fortunate this creature found me intriguing enough to make her presence known, and elated she allowed me to photograph her. We sat together a moment, amongst the leaf-fall and gilt trees, sipping cold, sweet dew from acorn caps while admiring the advancing morning’s play of light and color. Then, without a word, she vanished. Sprites are mercurial that way.
The day —
unseasonably warm.
The sun —
a smudged, pale disk
winking
through atmospheric haze.
How did he see it?
Suspended
within erect vertical grays
of leafless limbs?
A fibrous tea-cup
extended
in the slim tree’s
thumb and forefinger.
In offering,
in invitation
to sip
the echo of Spring.
–C.Birde
A young beech gathers sunlight in its parchment leaves and whispers of an Autumn reluctant to depart.
The night sky bloomed
with color —
unexpected as song,
welcome as benediction.
Rapturous,
the descending hues
of indigo and blue,
rose madder and scarlet
kissed the fringe
of treetops gold.
“Hurry,” he urged,
so I ran —
down the walk
through the frost-edged eve
into rapidly falling dark
to stand alone
as the paean subsided
amidst soaring
cathedral
trees.
— C.Birde
Merriam Oak has let go a sheaf of bronze-bright leaves, each as large as my booted foot, or larger. To walk beneath these bare and spreading boughs is to kick through a three-season journal, each leaf an entry, while the author prepares for rest and reflection during the spare Winter days to come.
The gray day presses
against
the curved pane of my brow,
A low-pressure ache
in residence grinding
behind
my right eye.
And I —
who love the rain —
feel only the damp,
the permeating chill
that creeps into my being,
that even sleep and a cup
of good, hot tea
cannot
relieve.
— C.Birde
