Yes.
I see the cracks,
the chips and fissures.
Tattered edges, fraying seams.
I hear the noise,
the thrum and tumult
near-constant as sea tide.
It breaks my heart.
It compels me to clear my eyes
and strengthen my resolve
to magnify those signs,
however small,
of persistent
hope and
beauty.
— C.Birde
Arrow-tall Hickory pelts the earth with its potential offspring. In childhood, I spent many a day beneath just such a tree as squirrel or chipmunk or blue jay; peeling back thick, green, four-petaled husks till my fingernails were tarnished; cracking open the small taupe-brown orbs within; picking out and eating the sweet nutflesh.
Southward,
we chased Autumn,
through burnished, narrowed light
beneath an escort of sprung-coil,
gloss-winged birds.
We pursued Her flame-leafed trail —
a coy wink,
a sly step —
until we lost Her among
gnarled live-oaks
and regiments
of soaring,
sentinel pines.
— C.Birde
The Four Sisters twine limbs
against the elemental sky
and weave roots
to part Earth
with slow and steady certainty.
They hold the memory of years,
of an age,
in their woody flesh,
girdled within their torsos
in concentric rings.
They do not complain,
nor pass judgment,
nor beg favor
as I pass between their knees,
beneath their shadow lattice.
Yet always,
they return my greeting in
their rustling,
multi-leafed chorus.
–C.Birde
“Autumn Reservoir” — C.Birde, 10/16/15
Slowly, the Reservoir refills,
its shoreline diminishing,
as a narrow ribbon of water twists
and dashes around worn-smooth stones
ordinarily submerged.
–C.Birde
Chipmunks share
the morning’s news in
ringing, staccato notes;
And Jays fall
from trees in
blue-blazed truth,
hunting among acorn-hued leaves
for those derbied nuts.
The Electron finds a
white-laced length of shed
snake skin,
too delicate to lift
with slender twig.
The light is diffuse, gentle.
The air is cool and sweet.
Absorb this
’til it imbues thought
and act
and gesture.
Carry it out and into
the World beyond these
wooded doors.
— C.Birde
“Autumn Tourne”, C.Birde Oct. 2015
My heart’s beats —
moss-covered and fern-filled,
deeply wooded;
clasped in pink granite and
ultramarine;
bound by star-pierced night —
I have brought the Island
home with me.
— C.Birde
Beech, lit — by morning sun;
Gently brushed by the shadows of its companions;
Untouched by the day’s heat yet to come.
— C.Birde,
Tourne Park, Sept. 2015