Shining Sweetgum
sagely scatters
scores
of
seedpods,
spiked & spherical.
— C.Birde, 10/18
Sweetgum — An Image
Toads — A Dream
Caught within the tangle of scratching, leafless forsythias at the road’s edge — that pale, packed strip of gravel, bending, bow-like and away left and right. Beyond the road’s farther edge, where the intrusion of gravel gives way to tumbled brown earth; beyond the earth’s gradual slope and the slim, young trees arranged haphazardly over that gentle declination — a ribbon of glittering blue, a deep lake of still water, its surface stirred by breeze. They have already crossed, slipped through the trees, their hands tracing those slender trunks as they passed, headed for the water, out of sight.
Watching, caught within the forsythias’ whip-wand embrace. Bending forward, doubled over at the waist. Shaking head and hair — gently. The toads tumble earthward, dozens of small dull brown toads shaken gratefully free of entangling hair. Watching them hop and scatter in all directions.
Laughing.
Laughing.
— C. Birde, 10/18
Lost — An Image
She is not lost,
locked away,
asleep in some rose-tangled
tower.
We have bartered
Her
for immediacy,
for convenience.
— C.Birde, 7/18
Chloro-Filled — An Image
Filled —
with light and
life and
magic.
Each leaf a
cellular agreement,
an exchange
of breath.
Filled,
refilled —
chloro-filled.
— C.Birde, 5/18
Falling Above — A Poem
Overhead,
above –
an earthward
tumble
of song and
smoke,
d
o
w
n
through budding
trees.
Two small birds,
a palm’s worth
each…
Beating wings.
Knitted,
knotted feet.
Rivals –
singing,
calling,
falling
d
o
w
n.
For one fleet
moment,
I might
be crowned,
adorned in
feathered,
kinetic
strife.
— C.Birde, 5/18
Forest in Hand — A Poem
Back bowed
to warming sun;
knees pressed
to earth –
withdraw each
tender seedling
from crisp,
sweet
leaf litter;
tug at that
connection,
at each pale,
elongated
stem and root
until –
unwilling –
the fibers
release.
Each pliant,
wrinkled leaf
a world
of innate
potential.
One hundred.
Two hundred.
Three…
To right,
moving headfirst
down the
parent tree,
Nuthatch watches,
mutters,
while Chickadee,
to left,
muses over
nest sites.
Rise,
forest in hand.
Determined
proliferation
of life
gathered,
in a small,
bouquet
of youngling
green.
— C.Birde, 4/18
Prayer — An Image
Cool light,
bright air —
slide along and
tickle
each rough–barked,
leafless branch
to
wakening.
— C.Birde, 4/18
Confirmation — A Poem
A pair of crows –
fragments of night,
dark clad and
shining –
pluck the maple’s
red confetti
blooms.
Pass below.
Scatter robins
through last year’s
fallen leaves.
Bound and bonded
to earth,
accept the drift
of sooty corvid voices,
of scarlet petals –
blessings of slow
progress.
— C.Birde, 4/18
Linden Bears Snow — An Image
Two days past,
the snow fell hard
and fast.
We held
our breath
as venerable branches
cracked.
But the Linden
bore
its burden,
and through
its frosted limbs,
the light
recast.
— C.Birde, 3/18
Ventriloquist — An Image
Blue jay called
from the old
Norway Maple
in the voice
of a crow,
coarse with soot
and
shadow.
— C.Birde, 2/18