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
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
Despite the calendar’s
declaration,
snow dusts
the crocus’ tight-
furled
petals.
— C.Birde, 4/18
Unfold the day —
careful of seams and
edges —
and spread it over
the breakfast table
where south-facing
bay windows
permit brooding
morning light.
Consider the rain,
the pattern of beads
that slide down
uniform squares
of glass.
Wait —
patiently impatient —
for the espresso pot’s
confirming
sputter.
— C.Birde, 4/18
I will always
sing
my hopes to the Moon,
and whisper —
for safekeeping —
my secrets
to certain
and particular
cats.
— C.Birde, 3/18
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
A toiling, long
March —
uphill,
through snow
churned and seamless —
to greet ephemeral
Spring.
— C.Birde, 4/18
Snowfall —
fallen,
falling.
Inches’ and layers’
accumulation,
accumulating.
Wait…
Breath held as trees,
beneath
their sudden burden,
bend
and songbirds’
courting chorus
cease.
The blessing
did not
hold.
We fold
beneath winter’s final
felling lash.
Begone.
Begone!
Appeased,
at last.
— C.Birde, 3/18
Prepare
a path for Spring.
Ring all
the little bells
and greenling chimes
that She
might linger
— bloom and linger —
in the unfixed
margins
of spirit,
heart and
mind.
— C.Birde, 3/18
Two days past,
the snow fell hard
and fast.
We held
our breath
as venerable branches
cracked.
But the Linden
bore
its burden,
and through
its frosted limbs,
the light
recast.
— C.Birde, 3/18