I have nothing.
I have nothing left.
I have nothing left to say.
My words,
a song of rust
brushed against
an ear
unhearing,
turned away.
Absorbed
in conflict and
distraction.
Take your ease
in your unease.
I have nothing.
I have nothing left.
I have nothing
left to say.
— C.Birde, 2/19
We
are a pack,
intimately formed,
with no clear
Alpha,
that role shifting
as easily as
want
need
demand
arises.
Each retains
full memory of arrival,
of introduction
to this flesh —
an ache,
a break,
a humbling of self
denied,
resisted,
at long length
accepted.
Inseparable.
Tippy and Horse;
twins Thumbelina
and Paige;
Daisy, Tippy’s heir.
A tangle of mortality,
we comfort each other,
lick our wounds
as one.
We are
a pack.
— C.Birde, 2/19
We sang our way
to the everglades —
earth and water
unfolding,
enfolding;
lungs full of endless sky.
And the landscape
sang chorus —
forever,
forever,
foreverglades.
— C.Birde, 2/19
My hourglass heart
breaks
each day
with each grain
of sand –
a grief,
a fear,
a pain —
that sifts through
that narrow
passage,
scours its way —
down,
down, and
down.
A small drift
of bruises
collects.
Invert the glass –
me,
my heart –
and shoosh,
the process starts
again.
One chamber
empties,
the other fills;
a cycle
unabating.
— C.Birde, 2/6/19
He Laughed
as she approached.
“You look so funny,” he said,
“you look so beautiful.”
One
can be
both
?
— C.Birde, 1/19
“When the student
is ready,
the teacher will
appear”…
I am not yet seated
to accept
this instant,
this moment,
this now —
and the sage
arrives.
Paws correct
posture;
rough tongue
adjusts hands’
placement;
trace of whiskers
prickles,
challenges
focus.
Lap
full.
Heart
open.
Progress gauged
by tail’s tip;
critique delivered
in rumble and
purr.
— C.Birde, 1/19
Come.
We’ll distill tree shadow
and bird song
and slips of moonlight
to perfume our days,
our dreams.
— C.Birde, 1/19
Remember
when we stood beneath
the great spruce,
faces tilted upward,
hands lifted to catch
their rough laughter
as it fell –
heavy as pinecones,
bright as crescents of
moonlight –
from those vast,
outstretched limbs?
Six years gone,
the tree cradles silence;
the absence echoes
forward.
We wait below;
patient;
hands
empty.
— C.Birde, 1/19
Scale
the heart’s walls…
Overcome
the mind’s restrictions…
Spread kindness —
like a disease
our lives
depend
on.
— C.Birde, 1/19
Resolved
to remain open
to change
as the desire,
the need,
the opportunity
arises…
Beholden
to no one day’s
measure of success
or failure.
Each day,
a new day
dawning.
— C.Birde, 1/19