Pages spill with words
planted in spiralling rows
on sheets of Moonlight.
–C.Birde
Gray Notes — A Poem
Color of fog and feathers,
of cool appraisal and expressionless gaze;
of shadows and headstones
and earth’s exposed and tumbled bones.
Color of passionless judgment,
of days’ old snow;
a friend of long lost years ago.
Color of shingles and slates,
smoke and chimney swifts;
of the hammered plate of February sky
inverted, enveloping;
of hills obscured by atmosphere.
Color of heart’s silence,
and murmuring peal of bells.
Color of cats and coyotes
and the Moon’s waterless seas;
of oysters and bruises and memory;
of ghosts and half-truths,
Magic and melancholy.
The pencil’s path over paper,
building, constructing;
the smooth skins of beeches
and slender young maples.
Color of age and wisdom,
thin filaments threading honeyed hair.
Winter’s Monochrome,
composed in subtle notes
of Gray.
— C.Birde
Need — A Poem
Winter’s light –
drunk,
swallowed,
gulped;
Cupped in grateful hands.
Fingers’ curved
in grasping seams
through which
that thinned substance
too soon,
too quickly seeps,
fades,
sets.
Eyes closed,
face upturned and tilted
toward hastening light;
For a moment quenched,
replenished,
soothed —
dream of greener days
restored.
–C.Birde
Witness — A Poem
Hawk and Sparrow —
along the fallow edge they flew,
with wings and talons slicing
that perimeter unseen.
A dance of opposition —
capture and escape;
Unison of hearts intent
and beating.
Flash of yellow,
thrust of taloned legs —
Sparrow cries alarm.
Wings meshing,
beating earth and air.
Confusion of color —
ivory, woodland rusts and browns.
But Hawk cannot extract his prize,
cannot pull it under, out, and up
and lift away in flight.
Release is unexpected —
talons unclutch and liberate;
Sparrow streaks to ruffled safety
within the bristle of nearby hedge.
Beyond separating glass —
among fenced and netted stones
of slumbering, tongueless garden —
Nature’s urgent tug and pull
unfolds,
and I am Witness.
— C.Birde
Patience — A Poem
For weeks,
the hearth was stoked
and fed.
Now,
two brands withdrawn
and lead
away
to light their
separate paths.
Cold absence
and quiet.
Wait —
patient breath upon the coals
till the embers
stir again
to flame.
— C.Birde
Deja Vu — A Poem
Particled lines of light
glance through the kitchen window;
drone of radio,
and dishwasher’s chant;
unsettled kettle, so near to boil;
the knife in my hand
that snicks through kale,
ribboning leaves —
Each entwines and elevates
the sense of expectation —
They gather on the side steps,
forty-five minutes late or
two seasons early,
bearing creation and song…
Fluid time slides around me,
eddying forward and back,
and I stand motionless,
sharply aware of the slim line
separating premonition
from memory.
— C.Birde
Color in Winter — A Poem
Without,
the birds flit and huddle
amongst silvered branches;
squirrels are plushly bundled
against the dipping cold;
thickened shadows stretch
and recline,
obedient to the sun’s lowered,
glancing angle —
All is blanched of color,
rinsed in flinty tones.
But within these walls
for a moment —
for a breath —
the ceiling is stroked with color;
a smooth field of white strung
with jeweled notes
as narrow rays strike
that small drop of faceted glass,
and pass
through myriad polished faces —
Bending,
refracting,
brightening.
— C.Birde, 1/16
Bloom in Winter — A Poem
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
Separation — A Poem
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
Autumn’s Nest — A Poem
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
