“Sit with me
on Winter’s knee…”
Her fern-tipped
fingers brushed
my brow.
“Together,
we’ll bear witness
to Light’s rebirth,
& Hope’s.”
— C.Birde, 1/21
Reservoir of Dark — An Image
nature
Winter Prayer — A Poem
Peeled away
That tousled,
tumbled veil of leaves
A verdant memory left –
like a puff of breath –
clinging
to the form beneath
Imperfection,
rough beauty, &
strength laid bare
All manifestations
exposed
Revealed —
like prayer —
by the cold,
spare,
bone-bare,
honest touch
of Winter.
— C.Birde, 1/21
Worth — An Image
“You are
no less important
than the greatest
of mountains,”
she spoke in wind &
weather,
“& no more important
than the smallest
of mosses –
each,
a world all its own,
& a treasure.”
— C.Birde, 1/21
So(u)lstice — A Poem
Longest, darkest night
Sun stopped, soul stretched,
wing-tipped in slow glide
toward Winter
Lips recite a thousand
half-recalled names of light
Hands clasp a telling dark
shot through with promise
& promise & promises
commingled in this slimmest
slip of slim hours.
— C.Birde, 12/20
Impress — An Image
“Learn to read
the patterns
in the snow,”
she urged,
“& know
you are not
— nor ever were –
alone.”
— C.Birde, 12/20
Dark Descending — A Poem
I feel it…
the slow creep
of oblique melancholia
that seeps beneath
the skin
as daylight slips,
eclipsed by dark.
Hours dim and dwindle,
smudged from each day’s
steady transit.
Hoarded light reclines
toward torpor,
awaits eventual
rebirth,
while in the interim,
I feel –
oh so keenly –
its very
dearth.
— C.Birde, 12/20
Earth Song — A Poem
Walk the bones
of earth exposed,
those fissures, roots
and stones –
and weep
for the beauty of it all
Our fleeting moment
in it
Our sparking union
with it,
to it
We are one
Large and small
Singular and all
Wild meadow grasses
Stream and river and
and seas’ foaming
edges
Forests, mountains, plains,
and deserts
Clothed
in a garment of light –
sun and moon and star
And remember –
All we see is all
We ever are
Walk the bones
— C.Birde, 12/20
Treasure — An Image
“Look for me,”
her voice was sly
as a curl of leaf,
the shiver of wind,
“in unexpected places —
the hidden,
overlooked, and
small, silent spaces.
You will find me
there.”
— C.Birde, 11/20
Autumn Falls — An Image
“Days grow short,
& leaves fall
like rain…”
Her voice carried
in the breasts
of migratory birds.
“Yet I remain.
I remain.”
— C.Birde, 11/20
You — A Poem
The earth wears gilt
Thy sky runs pewter blue
And I…
I think of you
My bones catch the whiff
of Winter and
rattle in their frame
And all my thoughts
my hopes
of future warmth —
like migratory birds —
return always
to you.
— C.Birde, 11/20
