“Oh, my dear,”
— a caress
of voice;
tender,
sympathetic —
“when life most hurts,
it is imperative
to seek
j
o
y.”
— C.Birde, 2/20
Search — An Image
Cipher — A Poem
We rode the air
on dark wings
glittering —
a hundred pair
(Once, we numbered
thousands)
tried,
with each beating
stroke
and the rust
of our throats
(“O, hear us,
O, listen…”)
We skirled
and soughed through
the bone-bare trees
and cried in a voice of
calamity:
“Beware!
Our cipher,
our patterns, heed.
Beware!”
Your heads
never
lifted.
— C.Birde, 2/20
Conscience — An Image
She wore
her conscience
like a mist —
draped softly
about her,
touching all
she said
&
did.
— C.Birde, 2/20
Hedged — An Image
“Is it meant,”
he frowned,
“to protect or confine?”
She met his eye,
expressionless;
did not immediately
respond.
“That depends…”
she observed,
“entirely
on expectation,
perspective,
on which side
one finds
one’s
s
e
l
f.“
— C.Birde, 1/20
InSight — A Poem
Drawing eyes,
inviting the gaze
of others
to look,
to judge,
to measure;
to see through
(without fear)
to the essence
of Truth
tucked deep
within
the eyes’ “I”.
To be seen,
and so,
set
free.
— C.Birde, 1/20
EyeEyeEye — A Dream
Sketching
across the paper’s
width and length
in rows
of two, four, three;
sketching them stacked
like great scoops
of ice cream.
Eyes.
One atop another
piled.
Eyes
of melting,
cartoonish
grotesquerie.
Eyes,
staring –
wide and sightless –
from beneath lashes
curling,
spidery.
Eyes
of enlightenment;
of innocence and
judgment.
Eyes
of inner wisdom.
Eyes
of the ego’s “I”.
Those windows
of the soul.
Indeed,
indeed.
Sketching,
sketching
row upon row,
until she takes
the sheet of paper,
nods admiringly,
and,
wielding scissors –
silver,
shining –
slices through
the topmost row,
slices
right through
that row of eyes –
wide and sightless –
straight through
their unblinking
pupils and
irises.
— C.Birde, 1/20
Souldier — An Image
“I feel the grief
in my body,”
she said,
“a weight of tears
unshed,
to be shed.”
So Dawn draped her;
Moon crowned her;
& Foxfire
crept into her heart,
so she might
souldier on
— in light —
through the dark.
— C.Birde, 1/20
Answer — A Poem
Questions root,
flower,
remain
unanswered —
leaves whispering
in the forest
of pending moments.
The whole
confounds.
Loss
bewilders.
All,
seeded with
uncertainty.
Yet the answer is
ever and
always
love.
— C.Birde, 1/20
Harold — A Dream
Last night,
beneath the hard,
fluorescent light,
unexpectedly,
you stopped by.
As I searched
the cabinets’ files,
I described
how,
with infant cradled
in my lap,
I had howled
upon learning
of your death,
and how the guilt
of missing
your service
had clung,
unanswered,
un-absolved.
How
recently I’d found,
the post cards
you’d sent;
of my search
for a photo
of you,
unsatisfied.
You listened.
In combed gray suit,
white-collared shirt,
wine-red tie.
Gray of hair,
gray of eye.
In sympathy,
you listened,
you nodded
and sighed.
And I realized
it was you
to whom I spoke,
you…
The very you who –
twenty-four years ago,
not twenty-five –
had died.
Suddenly,
calmly,
I realized –
that I spoke to you
of you,
that I must be
dreaming…
And you,
you
smiled and
sighed.
— C.Birde, 1/19/20
The Slow Unfolding — An Image
“I adore you,”
the sky praised;
“We are one,”
the earth purred.
Between them,
he drifted —
untethered,
unclaimed —
a chronicle yet
to
u n f o l d.
— C.Birde, 1/20