“Describe the Mother…”
“Describe the Queen…”
Their voices overlapped,
currents on a cerebral shore,
deep blue & green in refrain.
Without hesitation, he answered:
“She stepped from the dark
hollow of a great white Tree
fully formed & radiant,
an image shimmering with
intensity – a sight to see.”
He paused to catch his breath,
then continued, surprised:
“I knew her instantly.”
— C.Birde, 4/22
“We are tied,
you & I,
“inextricably intertwined,”
her words pulsed
with Time’s unfolding,
“Your actions writ
upon my canvas.
Be wise.
Be kind.”
— C.Birde, 4/22
Head full of noise
& unrelenting image
Kaleidoscopic colors
shift, alter
Scarlet, eggplant, umber
interrupted
Bright flashes of noise,
(pop of old house bones)…
Wind caught in trees
trapped, released
to whoosh free ‘round
blunt corners
Coyotes’ not-so-distant,
mournful song
Something else,
something other
(unidentifiable)
calls…
Sleep arrives at last…
then dreamsdreamsdreams
in concussive,
hectic
tumble.
— C.Birde, 4/22
Unrestricted, vernal light
pours through bay windows’
oblique angles…
Alights in canary-yellow
flowers caught,
arranged
mid-flight at the breakfast
table’s center …
Light laps wide floorboards
of polished, honeyed oak;
wainscoted walls of ocher…
And, at last,
splashes up upon a board
in the corner of that low-
paneled wall that emits
(listen!)
a scritch-scratch-scritch
(behind, within)
of something trapped,
hidden,
concealed away
from such profuse display
of gilding…
The inset section trembles,
shivers, shifts, glides back
upon itself into the wall,
reveals a hollow space
that holds a child…
A child who, in turn, holds
a pale fluff of smallish kitten
(rabbit?)
snug against her sternum…
Who looks up, surprised,
to be rescued at long last,
released from confinement
(days, months, years?)
blinking darkness from
wide eyes.
— C.Birde, 4/22
I take my heart
to the sea
for safekeeping;
with blessings,
the pines’ sighs
pleat the air;
& the chickadees
bind us All
in song.
— C.Birde, 4/22
O, March —
mercurial & a-brim with bluster
Encompassing
emotions’ scope, depth, & wide,
sweeping swings
Animate
Empathic
Passionate & weeping aloud
the world’s griefs,
shouting its humble victories
Accept me –
nearly as buoyant,
at turns razor-edged &
tearful in my seclusion;
your mortal expression,
your devotee.
I am yours.
— C.Birde, 3/22
“Do you not yet know?
How I cherish you?
In every bud
& feather
& tuft of fur?”
Her words lifted
from the earth’s
flowering dream.
“As I long
to be cherished
by you?”
— C.Birde, 3/22
Magnolia –
tipped tight in white-
wax buds,
Arboreal candelabra
awaiting Vernal
flint & tinder’s
strike.
— C.Birde, 3/22
I, a white-masked cipher curled
above the rusted pump within
old wisteria’s protective weave
& tangle,
I, a shadow leaning out beyond
the curtain of dry shadows’ twist
(feel the subtle separating prick
of pinfeathers’ growth forming
& transforming)
My bent neck lengthening from
hoary vines’ obscuring traceries
to better see beyond the mask’s
silk-ribbon-tassled boundaries
through soft-tumbled dark,
Two girls rapidly approaching,
two pairs of eyes wide-open
in faces upward tilting, &
two pairs of small hands lifting,
cupped & empty,
(to be filled? or hopeful offering?)
I, stretching further from wisteria
above the pump’s fixed drip drip
dripping to peer, beak-mouthed,
at splayed moth-pink palms
My auriculars hearing the voice
that scolds & calls from whence
the two girls emanated
My own clear-sighted eyes blinking,
behind the white mask seeing
their reluctant turning,
small hands falling slack against
their sides like dimmed clusters
fading
My cipher-self retreating to roost
concealed from undesired view
in wisteria’s curtaining tangle,
as the Scold approaches,
Folding new-feathered wing-arms
long against ribs & hips
(mid-transformation)
Reaching keen, claw-taloned tips
back toward the coverts of upper-
& undertails,
toward stub-tailfeathers’ oh-so-slow
inevitable forming
I, receding back into embracing
shadow & vines’ hushed rustling
while the abandoned pump drip
drip drips in trickle diminished,
yet always, ever flowing.
— C.Birde, 3/22
Side-by-side-side,
three doors reside deep-
set in the flock-papered
wall –
charcoal,
green,
scarlet;
each framed in carved
white painted wood.
Open –
slowly –
the charcoal door…
descend a shaft
of cinderblocks &
open-tread stairs
where below –
thickly wreathed
in coiling smoke –
a rust-&-iron cauldron
of daunting girth
bubbles unattended,
waiting,
waiting to be stirred…
Back upstairs,
the green door waits…
creep down to find
a bright potting shed
where two cruel men
shift sharpened gazes
from a downcast girl
(she trowels dark earth
into cracked clay pots,
her denim overalls
streaked in the same);
in gleeful anticipation,
they seize upon their
new target with words
deriding & laughter
scraping up the stairway
(under the unseen
spider’s nest)…
Away,
away –
& firmly close the door.
One remains,
one only –
a shining scarlet mystery
waiting in plain sight –
unaddressed,
unapproached,
unaltered.
All potential wittingly
ignored.
— C.Birde, 3/22
Nightjars & Damselflies 