still raven
on the bike trail
wild roses blooming
starling versus bluebird bird house
raccoon leg hanging out of the hole mated flickers wait
cat’s back turned
one-legged magpie
eats from the bowl
a killdeer
in the vacant lot
her song lingers
curious towhee
looks down at me
changing the oil
garage clear
two sparrows
steal string
woodpecker snags
a grasshopper
out of the air
I’ll be posting a bird poem a day for the next week. I want to re-blog some of my favorites. But I’m also happy to have new work if you want to send it to me!
Found these bird images by Merry Cox via the Colorado Art Ranch. To see more–www.merrycox.com
“Nest” by Merry Cox
***
I’m also always grateful for your feedback and comments. I love it when readers send me art, poetry, and events to cover. Let me know if there is something YOU are interested in writing about.
Gulls of Loblolly Cove
are beak to beak,
no, beak in beak
on kelp-clad rock.
Late afternoon,
and their hunger
is not morning’s
for live catch
dropped and split.
Rather, it is bird lust I witness.
How wide she had opened her sharp lips
and shrieked for him. Now, they
beak wrestle, thrust and twist as if
they had our tongues to tangle with.
I missed the exact moment
they released each other,
but he flew first, east,
then she,
her polished yellow eyes
wild with indecision, west.
Rain Break
Like the tongue after dark chocolate
the day is thick-edged and delicious.
Rain slicks the slate steps,
marblizes flagstone,
tree moats finally fill.
Reluctantly I seek cover.
Except for lightning
nothing buzzes,
nothing rings––
a no alarm afternoon.
No finger wags to accuse
lazy lonely dull.
I watch
this mudslick, wind-pelted,
rearranged world, lucky
to lean on ancestry
of reverie.
Windows stream.
The dog collapses on cool tile.
Birds call through thunder.
Fragile Fabric We Might Be Made Of
It was as if each breath
had escaped a pouch
stitched denial
as its threadbare silk
gave way, the way
her friend shook out
her grandmother’s velvet gown
and except for the seams
it crumbled to dust.
Dusk downpour
and the intersection
opened its black book.
One paragraph bled into the next.
In dream, she extracted
gray pearls from between her ribs.
At dawn, clawing leaves
under the dogwood,
her fingers hooked
a bird’s withered chest.
She searched its sockets for pearls,
the intersection for a word,
tested velvet ash as a surface
to draw upon.
Only the skeleton
of dress loosed to breeze–
a frame she could enter.
ARRHYTHMIA
My history? Maybe it was always there,
doctor, my irregular heart beat
but I only became aware of it
the first time I heard the Hermit Thrush.
That’s right. But I’d have to go back years
to Kern County, me behind the wheel
of an old, red Buick, engine gone,
car up on blocks, next to a creaking oil well.
It was west of our farm out in the desert.
My legs barely reached the pedals.
I had the window rolled down
to hear the wind, the sand
pepper the fenders, the windshield.
I was happiest alone, leaving home
on my imaginary wheels.
That bird, its song, a long, sad note
fading away out in the sage, beyond the oily
drums, the pump house.
In those days, doctor, an angel followed me
everywhere. We explored the abandoned wells.
Piles of steel casings gone to rust. Mean, black cable—
Paint Brush growing up through the coiled
knots—where horny toads lived.
Wooden derricks, some still standing,
polished to silver from a hundred years
of wind and sand. We could be so quiet
out there, rabbits would come out of hiding for us.
I saw the little thrush only once, years later,
black dots on its chest. Such a shy bird.
Ornithologists call its song
a ‘soft whistle.’ But there is no song
without affliction, doctor. No bird, if we’ll listen,
that does not built its secret nest in us
out of old string and dead feathers.
***
ALL THE BIRDS ARE HERE
It’s a noisy gathering
to wave us good bye.
No hard feelings.
Just one reason, like dogs,
I so like birds:
they don’t hold a grudge.
What a fine thing
to let go almost immediately
all the bad things
we’ve done to them.
You can see the bomb falling.
It’s packed with all our good intentions.
The White-rumped Warbler
makes me smile.
If you want to get in here
you can add your bird now.
It’s a damn shame, isn’t it,
how our tool making
just got out of hand.
A word that kills: reclamation.
A word to love: water bird.
Any bird can fly
rings around a rocket
and Mars is no wetland.
The contemplative bittern
lives down deep
in the reeds.
It’s single croak,
when forced to fly,
“Leave me alone.”
This is our “trail of tears,”
but not our Oklahoma.
Everything’s used up
we might have called home.
Miriam's Well: Poetry, Land Art, and Beyond 