Moon’s image
floats
within
a reservoir
of night.
— C.Birde, 9/16
Reservoir of Night — An Image
Earthworm Stylus — A Poem
Intentions aside,
their bodies incise
the dry trail’s
dusted length
with their
desperate
search
for
m
o
i
s
t
u
r
e.
— C.Birde, 9/16
Cosmic Bowl — A Dream
It sits in a flagstone courtyard in the middle of a manicured field – a shallow, bronze bowl, filled with clear water. Concentric circles ripple outward from the bowl’s center to its smooth sides. Together we work, he and I, to keep the bowl filled. We each lug buckets, paths intersecting back and forth.
I cross the field’s shorn grass. Water sloshes in the bucket I carry, but maintains its level. And no sooner do my steps touch the flagstones, than he is headed away to refill his own bucket. When I arrive at the courtyard’s center, I pour a quantity of water into the gleaming bowl – far more than it should reasonably contain. Though neither he nor I have spilled a drop, though the surrounding flagstones are dry as bone, the water’s level continues to leach away. No time to linger. He is back now, ready to pour another dousing, and I must hurry. Replenish, pour, repeat.
Each time I approach with a new contribution, I can see more clearly the shimmering pattern that radiates outward from beneath the bowl. A pattern that arches out across the flagstones and over the field; the arms of an infant galaxy that spiral, stretch, and extend. Ethereal, as if superimposed over flags and field, this other, liminal dimension must lie just beneath our own – beside, over, within. Here, the bowl is firmly centered on muted flagstones over that glittering system’s heart. All the water we collect and carry and pour into the bronze bowl nourishes this emerging galaxy.
Again, we cross paths; his bucket emptied, mine brimming. Our feet tread flagstones – slate blue, gray, brown; they chart the lengthening, strengthening spiral arms – cosmic motes of purple and silver. We skip lightly over stardust, our paths crisscrossing again. And I wonder, as I empty my bucket, as I pour a steady stream of water into the bowl’s void – when the new system has grown, when it has enveloped and reformed our world (as it will and must) will I remember all of this? Any of this? Will we?
Cool grass beneath my cheek, pressed into my hand and arm. I awake in a close-cropped field. Blinking eyes open, I see a world of green spreading in all directions and wide blue sky tilting above. Before I can press myself upright, I also see, resting in the grass nearby like a small planet settled within this lush green universe, a smooth stone…
Ahhhh…. I remember.
Dawn Wood — An Image
My invitation arrived
in the wood
at dawn.
— C.Birde, 9/16
Four Paws — A Poem
Four paws pause
on the mountain’s graveled flank —
she gathers news
from weed and shrub,
root and stone;
pulls me along.
No matter that I am
near senseless to all
she perceives –
I am content
to wait and contemplate
the weave of breeze
among branch and leaf
pressed to the breast
of gray-clad sky;
to gather for safe-keeping
the coruscating mantras
of crickets, birds and tree frogs
as wards against
future silence.
I am content
to admire those
steely wildflowers
that scatter fairy light
over the forest’s
parched floor
for as long
as I am permitted…
Until, urgently,
I am pulled
to move again —
rapidly and ever onward —
toward the next
newsworthy
site.
–C.Birde, 9/16
Helianthus — Images
Helianthus nods and smiles
beyond the window,
curious why I sit indoors
when I could be outside,
adorned in goldfinches
and bees.
— C. Birde, 9/16
The Linden — A Poem
Stay…
Linger beneath the linden —
that tree of bees
and heart-shaped leaves.
We’ll spread a blanket
in restless shade
over the drowsing heads
of sweet clover,
and name the birds’
erratic patterns
scrawled across the sky.
Together, we’ll drift
as Summer slips
us by.
— C.Birde, 8/16
Outsized Rabbit — A Dream
Enormous. Colossal. Prodigious. Not words typically used to describe a rabbit. And yet, there it is — a rabbit of such mammoth proportions, it dwarfs the person holding it. A great armload drooping soft-furred folds of flesh past those hands clasped beneath its ribs. It stares benignly, blinks dark, liquid eyes, seemingly content to be held dangling great long legs. Astonishing. Bewildering. Extraordinary. Or, perhaps not — it is, after all, the Mustafa Angora Legedermain rabbit…
Toadthrone — An Image
In a neighboring realm
stands a Toadthrone so grand,
the green grass is left to weave unshorn about it.
(And some secretly anticipate the royal personage
who must
hold court
there.)
— C.Birde, 8/16
Periphery — A Poem
Son, sun, and Summer
ease their way toward
absence —
I am well attuned
to the cycle.
And experience
has shown
it appears
far easier to leave
than it feels
to be
left.
— C.Birde, 8/16