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
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
Sly wink and glide,
she eludes
his fiery grasp,
and scatters
her Cheshire grin
in countless
bright crescents
to mark her passage.
No portents here.
Rather,
a coy,
lunar sway
as,
smoothly,
she slips before
his wide,
unblinking
eye.
— C.Birde, 8/17
Constellation of feathers,
they stud the burning bush,
the hedge and wires,
and with the least
provocation,
lift
in a cloud of wings,
scissoring up and away.
Small messengers.
Each a hope too large
to bear alone.
Each a small
elevation
of heart.
— C.Birde, 8/17
He creeps amongst
the fennel stems,
content to nibble
fragrant, feathered
leaves.
He never dreams
of flight.
— C.Birde, 8/11/17