Time slips
through fingers splayed
ray after ray
a corona glowing
The longest day’s light
collected,
cupped,
swallowed.
— C.Birde, 6/24
Solstice — A Poem
Plume… — A Poem
Plume
of light amongst
the blown seed heads
Bright
memory of self,
what is,
what was,
what again will be.
— C.Birde, 11/22
Holding Light — An Image
“Despite our flaws –
large & small,
real or imagined –”
her voice swayed
on mild breeze,
“we each hold
the capacity
of great
light.”
— C.Birde, 5/21
Light & Shadow — Am Image
“Light returns!”
Her voice glittered
on the wind’s bladed edge.
“Feed your heartfire
on this everlasting
hope.”
— C.Birde, 1/21
Light — An Image
“You are Iight!”
Her voice sang
clear as a Winter’s night.
“Do not hide yourself
in darkness –
lend your spark
to others &,
together,
shine.”
— C.Birde, 1/21
Winter Solstice — An Image
On this,
the year’s longest
night,
the tide of dark
steps to the edge,
reverses course
t
o
w
a
r
d
light.
— C.Birde, 12/18
Limits — A Poem
Concealing,
revealing in equal turns,
the length and breadth
of night extends
its reach,
paints the lonesome
oaks —
bereft of leaves —
in silence…
Feeling our way
to the edges of that
darkened,
incurious landscape —
heeding, perhaps,
the dormant promise
of dreams and rest and
contemplation —
we hold aloft spheres
of shivering,
self-limiting light,
fearful of what we might
discover.
— C.Birde, 11/18
Conjuring Light — A Poem
Light
slips through our
grasp…
Each hour of each day —
paler, thinner,
more threadbare than
its yesterday.
Plumed
in solar flares,
our tongues regale each other
with half-remembered
tales of milder days —
songs of Crow and Centaurus,
and the Great Bear,
of the Herdsman
and his starry flock
spread across the night sky’s
vast backdrop.
Frost-touched,
we’ll pause together
at Winters’ gate and,
reminiscing,
conjure
light.
— C.Birde, 11/18
Feathers & Moonlight — A Dream
A cloak of feathers.
Tier upon tier – swan and goose and snowy owl.
It floats gently about the form;
delicately, restlessly skims shoulders, limbs, and torso.
White as the moonlight gathered
from that heavenly body adrift in the night sky.
Aglow, each feather gleams and shimmers in the otherwise darkened room.
A room of gray stone – heavy with antiquity – arranged to form a turret;
to form, on its exterior curve, a large bay of triptych windows.
Decorated with scrolling grillwork, each of that trio stretches upward
toward the ceiling’s inverted, conical peak.
Undressed, the windows beg the moonlight’s entry,
plead,
invite,
as if that tide of light could be denied.
Feathers — silver-limned, separate and together.
The satin-clad bed at the room’s center — softly aglow.
The seam of light that leaks past the bathroom door’s blunt rectangular face —
challenged.
Voices beyond that door…
No.
Ignore them.
Do not heed their whispering; their arguing, incessant hiss.
Do not listen or be distracted.
Return to the triptych window, to its stone seat and summons.
Rest upon its cushions – crushed velvet, indigo blue;
Sit, clad in feathers and moonlight,
beside the pair of over-sized and venerable gray rabbits.
Stroke the rabbits’ soft fur, until one hops down, away,
ducks to hide beneath the bed’s satin skirt.
Peer out the window, out into the darkling night
from within the turret’s giddy height.
Over silvered, grassy lawns so far below.
Past the castle’s humped and shadowed torso
to the turret opposite, twin to this.
See there?
Those triptych windows, lit to glowing beyond parted scarlet drapes?
Someone moves within that other room.
Bathed in brimming, golden light —
another soul.
— C.Birde, 11/18
Last Day of Summer — An Image
He wore the light
of the last day
of Summer
— in his hair —
like a
crown
ablaze.
— C.Birde, 9/18