
“Duality” — C.Birde, 12/19
“The absence of strife”,
she mused —
light and dark
tangling
in her open hand —
“highlights the absence,
entire.”
— C.Birde, 12/19
“Duality” — C.Birde, 12/19
“The absence of strife”,
she mused —
light and dark
tangling
in her open hand —
“highlights the absence,
entire.”
— C.Birde, 12/19
“Inscription” — C.Birde, 12/19
“You remembered…”
Her voice sang
between the crease
of light & dark,
of autumn and winter.
“When it would be easy
— so easy, too easy —
to forget,
you
remembered.”
— C.Birde, 12/19
“Josie” — C.Birde, 12/19
Stroke my ears
and speak to me
in praiseful tone
of my abundant
canine virtues,
And I will grin,
and wag,
and tilt my head
— just so —
in attendant
dog-o-logue.
— C.Birde, 12/19
“Josie — In Motion” — C.Birde, 12/19
“Ice-O-Lation” — C.Birde, 12/19
Don’t
look up.
Not here,
at the top of the world,
in this place
of isolation,
of endless night and
boundless snow,
in this roofless hut
of stone entirely open
to unbroken
night.
Don’t look up.
Bear no witness
to the floes of white ice
that define the sky’s
concave curve,
those bergs and glaciers
arranged
aloft
afloat
around that great,
enormous bolt
fastened above…
to…
what?
Hide your seeking,
searching,
perplexed,
bewildered eyes
behind your fingers’
weave.
And for heaven’s sake,
for logic’s sake,
don’t look
up.
— C.Birde, 12/19
“Full” — C.Birde, 12/19
She let go
despair,
& the Moon
kissed her brow,
smoothed her hair,
filled her
entirely
with
l i g h t.
— C.Birde, 12/19
“Lines” — C.Birde, 12/19
The lines dipped,
converged
with their weight
of birds
strung like beads,
like notes unsung.
We pass below,
unknowing.
— C.Birde, 12/19
“Entwined” — C.Birde, 12/19
So thoroughly
were they entwined,
they felt compelled
to ruthlessly
search out
&
declare
their ever-so-slight
differences.
— C.Birde, 12/19
“Wounded” — C.Birde, 12/19
The experience
held the unsavory
kernel of want –
like an absence
of salt
in aromatic soup
revealed only after
the spoon
lifted,
the lips
parted,
the tongue
tasted;
lodged like a seed
in the gum
(unreachable)
where wisdom once
resided.
— C.Birde, 12/19
“Interruption” — C.Birde, 12/19
Blue. White. Green.
Sky and clouds.
Rolling hills and lawn and trees.
These three brilliant, dazzling colors
dominate, as far as the eye can see.
To the right,
stroked between heaven and earth,
a long, low white house, modern and
featureless but for horizontal slabs
of black reflective glass
stretched like unspooled, undeveloped
film along the length of its recumbent
form.
From this structure’s back protrudes –
like the sweep of eyelet bridal train –
a semicircular deck of wood,
white, as well, but of a faded, ashen shade,
its brilliance muted, bleached
away.
And she, me, I.
The interruption.
Standing amidst this color scheme –
serene blue and white and green;
in striped, knee-high socks of every hue –
purple, pink, pale-yellow, orange, and
chartreuse;
one hand holds a bar of soap –
lavender-scented,
lavender-paper wrapped,
lavender, in both tint and tinge.
Standing there,
breeze gently lifting the hair
from our shoulders as we break the bar
in two and slip a brittling half into each sock’s
pulled-high, ribbed, fine-woolen
cuff.
I, me, she –
the lone bright-colored slash of verticality
in the entire placid,
tri-hued,
reclining,
scene.
— C.Birde