A love that passeth understanding for unfledged birds. / This one is a juvie robin for whom I just murdered three innocent worms and shared a strawberry. He’s out by the strawberry bed in an ornamental cage, unlocked in case Mom stops by. (Photo June 2021).
The leafy trees lend their cool jade shadows to the pond’s margins / While the breeze in its vanity grays the scarce-moving water / With myriad opaque pollens that repel the sky’s reflection / And dull the sheen of minnows who ache / For the power of flight.
The quaint old tea room tucked into a cobblestone alley is where they always make up after a quarrel. A Strauss waltz hums persuasively, its musical fragrance overlaid on their Earl Grey tea and dessert of dark chocolate mousse. One right hand and one left meet across the table.
On that ambrosial day, we meet at the colossal bridge to elsewhere. Hands clasped, we step on its ancient boards and our journey begins. Beneath us rages a torrent of otherwise, sweeping out of mind all heartbreak and disappointment as if they never were.
Conversations among birds are various. Lovebirds romance in song while mockingbirds hurl insults at home-invaders. If a thieving falcon appears a mob forms for the hue and cry–cowbirds bellow, catbirds yowl, and titmice bring the cheese and wine.
He groans awake in a park ornamented with dewy pastel finery but spares no thought for the flirtatious iris or silly narcissus. Sol’s cruel beams eclipsed his silver star, his darling Lucida, but he’ll wait an age for darkness to reveal anew her perfect beauty.
Morning lollygags between three clouds and their wavering reflections in scarce-moving water while an unhopeful osprey wheels on the thermals & redwing blackbirds bob on playgrounds of pliant reeds. A giant leopard frog is too laid back to take the plunge, but a fishwife heron flies off scolding.
Once in the valley of flowers, I was young with bluebell blood in my veins and my face gleaming gold with sunshine. My lover strode ahead in this spring paradise where a cerulean sky kissed the landscape, already older than I and climbing the slope of leaving.
Memorial to a dying ruby-throated hummingbird and allusion to my MG fantasy out there in the void awaiting a welcoming voice: / Of the Kuiper Belt social reptiles, the smallest resembles hummingbirds–living jewels singing of the cosmos at a pitch and volume to enchant the human ear. Yet extinction looms, for human contact transmits a virus that robs the flocks of every vibrant and subtle hue and even their last breath.
Avian sniper wars? You betcha. The Carolina wren nest box (chicks being fed) is besieged by brainwashed house sparrows trying to kill the chicks. The wrens’ evasive actions coming and going from the nest are tactics of deliberate misdirection.
PS (May 9th): The sole chick emerged today and is currently doing his rumspringa beneath the housefront Alberta spruces under the watchful eye of Ma and Pa.
Caterwauling herons flying over the pond and the dank odor of mud cooking in the sun–perfect backdrop to a family reunion. It’s been so long. The men swig cold beer on the bank as the kids in arm-floats test the murky water with brave bare toes.
It sways in the winds of change, the Passionflower fraught with the iconography of the crucifixion from the crown of thorns to the five wounds. A mundane skeptic’s adoration likely stems from its unusual cross-pollination engineering and the nectarous gift of its fruit.
I took a picture of bursting pussy willows and invisible bush hares that dust themselves with pollen to outfox allergic foxes. Earlier, I’d watched a squirrel’s shadow chasing along a tree shadow thrown across the lawn. Some wonders are not meant to be photographed.
A trembling green bird in my hand, dazed from a window-collision, dark eyes wide, beak wide as if to gulp enough sea wind to power her wings. Waiting. Warm. Legs thin as matchsticks and claws curled on my palm. The miracle of a tiny vireo surviving us.
A beguiling bricolage, a basket woven by hands large and small, calloused and soft. Interlacing the willow-weave are cast sparrow feathers and the star-shine of children’s whispers. A nest of eiders’ precious down, it offers sweet respite to the achy heart and weary eye.
Whose grief attends upon grave loss / Sears and splinters quotidian bulwarks / Disrupts the right-angled reality of a room / And plays satanic mantras backward. / How broken tears fall, prisms of healing / Glittery in a too bright illumination / Of love, relief, and shame.
Fog washes over the lake and seeps into the horizon. Stealthily, it smothers bushes and hums lullabies to fairies dozing with luxurious breaths inside curled leaves. The sensual mist drifts on, rising to cloak our home in mystery and steal from day the sunrise and birdsong.
Youth’s idyll on those summer beaches / Tsunamis of romance and expectations / Of eternity.
Poem for Leonard Cohen: Of all the dealers Lennie knew–poker, crack, and coke / He finally met the Mad Hatter / Sharer of darkened doorways / Invisible shadow of piss on scurvy paint / Who issued him an invitation to freedom for a price– / His weary soul or a sorrowful song of leaving.
Inhibiting brick dressed in climbing ivy hides a city nook. Lobed-left grape and purple wisteria entwine to form a canopy over a rustic bench where lunchtime lovers press close, wondering at this joy and every heartfelt kiss is tender as the first.
A susurration of ghost tires on wet roads / City light reflected in silvery moon pools / Big Ben now silent / As I wander into the past under umbrella-proof rain / To Piccadilly Circus and Eros defeated, / And along the sluggish Thames with its fairytale facades / Of dreamed history.
Inside a cradle moon woven of recycled butcher’s paper and stuck to glitter-spangled space with superglue lies a foundling infant of far-away time. / She waves unfocused arms and kicks her legs expectantly, awaiting the cow that jumps over to drop off her midnight feed.
My dogs dragged me down a street on my back / I’ve twice been yanked by my hair to the carpet / I’ve been sexually bullied, fleered at, and ostracized / At home, and here as a wearing foreigner with dubious habits. / The hell with it. / I’m still fine-tuned for dancing.