The wide night’s
white eye
shines bright
and I
slip by
below
unnoticed
but
for minstrel
crickets
who cease,
midway,
their
spacious
Autumn
song
to retrieve
anew
once I
have moved
along.
— C.Birde, 10/16
Moon Stroll — A Poem
Autumn Door — An Image
Thresholds
and doorways spied
from the corner
of one’s eye —
step off the long-trod path
into the arms
of
Autumn.
— C.Birde, 10/16
Wild Raspberry — An Image
Thorny wild raspberry,
whip limbs free of bright fruit,
stretches skyward
in recollection
of Summer.
— C.Birde, 10/16
Autumn Rain — An Image
Autumn rain —
a deep breath
after hectic Summer;
a vivid
and saturated
respite.
— C.Birde, 10/16
Verticality — Images
Amongst the verticality of trees
— their communal and elemental truth —
there is solace.
— C.Birde, 9/16
Sprite — An Image
I am fortunate this creature found me intriguing enough to make her presence known, and elated she allowed me to photograph her. We sat together a moment, amongst the leaf-fall and gilt trees, sipping cold, sweet dew from acorn caps while admiring the advancing morning’s play of light and color. Then, without a word, she vanished. Sprites are mercurial that way.
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
Young Beech — An Image
A young beech gathers sunlight in its parchment leaves and whispers of an Autumn reluctant to depart.
Sunset — A Poem
The night sky bloomed
with color —
unexpected as song,
welcome as benediction.
Rapturous,
the descending hues
of indigo and blue,
rose madder and scarlet
kissed the fringe
of treetops gold.
“Hurry,” he urged,
so I ran —
down the walk
through the frost-edged eve
into rapidly falling dark
to stand alone
as the paean subsided
amidst soaring
cathedral
trees.
— C.Birde
Morning Walk — Images
We walked this morning. Two bipeds, one quadruped, together breathing in a mild mid-morning.
Rattlesnake Meadow flickered with a wind’s breath that slipped between blown cattails. Snowbirds tittered and darted with sparrows too quick, too subtle for my eye to name.
A Red-tailed Hawk skimmed the meadow’s reed-sawn edge to roost in a slow-decaying tree. Patient, he surveyed the landscape. So much hidden within those pale grassy blades — I missed the Snowy Egret; I’m certain he did not.
At our walk’s end, a white-tailed deer wove ahead across our path, unconcerned by our intrusion. A fortunate start to a late-November day.