Dark star’s
collapse,
plummet
and crash.
Bones
broken,
protest
choked.
Wings tight-
folded,
neck arched
in sharp crescent;
plucked feathers
spread over green-
bladed grass.
Dark-bodied
constellation
pricks and studs
surrounding
trees,
mourns
in raucous,
full-throated,
voice.
— C.Birde, 3/1
Winter arrived —
fashionably late —
and spread her
glittering,
white-trimmed mantle
without haste,
so all observing
might recall,
in awe,
her beauty.
— C.Birde, 2/17
Overhead,
wings spread to finger
updraft and lift,
they call —
And I cannot help
but try to count
the numbers
of their ragged “V”,
as if the sum
of beaks,
eyes,
wings,
feathers
would reveal answers
to mysteries
ever sought,
ever felt,
rarely
seen.
— C.Birde, 1/17
At ease with winged shadow and
Winter’s long,
slow,
indrawn breath —
Crow bows in Greenwood Cemetery.
— C.Birde, 1/17
Parting rain and fog, they come full scream,
announcing their arrival, alerting me.
Dressed in crests and admiralty blue,
they arrange themselves in ranks
I can’t discern –
white-tipped blue ornaments
scattered among the pine’s green-fringed limbs,
along the railing and the gutters’ edges;
when I am slow to respond,
on the screen door’s handle.
I’ve read that their coloration is due
to their feathers’ internal structure ,
the result of light interference;
that crushing destroys the feather’s blue –
a questionable desire.
And I’ve read that each individual
wears distinct markings,
a collar of black
encircling the nape of each neck,
dipping down and forward
along each white-bibbed front –
unique as a fingerprint.
Despite these facts, they remain a blur of blue.
The designated caller peers down expectantly
from the gutter’s edge.
We observe each other,
envoys of overlapping kingdoms.
We converse,
and the off-white feathers at his throat
ruffle and stir.
When I send the nut skyward,
he lifts on spread wings and fanned tail.
Fingertips to talons.
Midair he collects my gift, his prize.
The moment joins and connects us.
We are inseparable.
— C.Birde, 11/16
They uncurl,
upswept like blown leaves
against the wintering sky,
to scrawl their message
in an organization
of wings
that glitter and smoke;
a collective of separate,
weightless bodies
coalescing –
We must leave
must leave
leave
While the sun yet feeds
their hollow bones
and propels
their starry wings,
that they might return
once the world renews
its tilt and they bear
new songs
to sing.
— C.Birde, 11/16
To rest
heart and head and bone
on pink-shouldered,
pink-hipped stone
laced gray with lichen,
and to see,
beyond the summit’s
curved, granite lip,
the peregrine arise —
winged wish
within the vast blue sky.
He dives,
snatches and tatters
the day’s cares –-
the week’s
the month’s
the year’s –-
in beak and talon.
A sun-soaked,
wind-tossed
promise.
— C.Birde, 9/16
Little Wren
builds a nest
outside the window’s frame
within a house
suspended,
pendant,
beneath the sheltering
azalea.
Industrious,
he stuffs it full,
a perfection
of twigs and sticks
collected and thrust
through a hole
cut just large enough
to permit his entry.
Bold creature,
far larger in spirit
than his diminutive frame
suggests,
he sings the yard’s
perimeter,
claims it as his own
with staccato notes
hurled upon the air
in rapid punctuation.
Little king —
I am an earthbound peasant,
well pleased to occupy
the earth beneath
your aerial
realm.
— C.Birde, 7/17
The air vibrates,
crackles with alarm,
with a dozen voices lifted.
The sky churns,
a-roil with frantic motion,
with wings that beat —
blue, red, brown, gray —
and claws that flex;
with beaks
that jab and split and scream.
The storm
of this haphazard flock,
focused on a soot-winged marauder.
Adorned in ebony,
he cowers beneath their blows,
beneath the arc and unrelenting descent
of their contempt.
Then, with a sullen croak of “uncle”,
he lifts from the roof’s peak,
spreads shadow wings
and flees.
All is still.
Peace returns.
The makeshift flock disperses.
Later,
tucked within the hedge,
spot-breasted and unfledged,
plucked or dropped or wrested
from the nest,
we find young Robin —
unwitting participant,
and silent witness
to all.
— C.Birde, 6/16
To stand a moment
where light and shadow fall
like Autumn leaves in Spring
and, in so pausing,
hear
the flutter of
those caught-in-amber notes,
strung like beads of sunlight
upon sweet, scentless air,
is to better understand
the exchange
of Odysseus and the Sirens —
my need to listen,
captivated,
and Thrush’s need
to sing.
— C.Birde, 5/16