Thirteen
striped bands –
black and autumn red.
Thirteen weeks
of winter.
But he intends
no forecast,
searches out
some snug spot
beneath bark or
stone or
fallen tree
under which to
curl and weather
anticipated
freeze.
— C.Birde, 10/6/17
The year turns
a shoulder
cold.
Discarded leaves –
yellow,
scarlet,
bronze –
drift, settle, and
rust.
Flocks tumble
southward in dark arcs.
A stumble in
the evening choir’s
collective
beat and thrum.
Impress
the frequency
and vibration to
muscle,
bone,
unconscious.
One knock, and
Autumn enters.
Stumble.
Tumble.
Fall.
— C.Birde, 10/17
tiktik
tika
tik –
Staccato click
of claws
on gravel, grass, stone.
Clink and jingle
of tags,
oval and oblong;
steel burnishing
brass.
Metronomic wag
of tail.
Four fleet feet,
a scant ten pounds,
she sets a lively pace
and pulls me
— up —
the MoUnTaIn.
— C.Birde, 9/17
She floats —
golden-eyed,
in a blush of pink —
through the contracting
dream
of Summer.
— C.Birde, 9/17
Mystery,
wrought of
hardened protein
and spun silk,
it exists
in two states,
twice –
alive and dead;
caterpillar and
butterfly.
Each
a truth entire.
Until
the chrysalis splits
and butterfly
emerges.
Or does not.
Spun silk heart,
not yet hardened,
snug between ribs,
beating in
two states –
Hope and
Dismay.
— C.Birde, 9/17
Decked
in white fringe,
gold tassels,
diagonals
of light,
late summer stirs
and
lingers,
reluctant to
depart.
— C.Birde, 9/17
Born
on the heels of
thunder,
when,
the evening prior,
the night sky
bloomed
with asters and
fiery
chrysanthemums.
A blaze of moments.
The season fades.
The psychic end
of summer.
— C.Birde, 9/6/17
Sealed off
in a doorless
chamber,
she dreams
and labors
and makes
of herself
a new
self.
— C.Birde, 9/17
The space,
so recently occupied,
still vibrates —
a scrap of atmosphere
stirred to warmth
by wings and pulse
beating too swift
to measure.
Stare —
cheek flush to heated air
where she speedily
unstitched the seams
of passing breeze
and slipped away,
like summer.
— C.Birde, 8/30/17
From a lofty height
he sang
a song of longing
and desire,
and when
— like Icarus —
he fell,
his wings of glass
and copper-threaded
wire
could not
s
a
v
e
him.
— C.Birde, 8/17