The people flocked

To see a bird in a dream
I looked it up and it seems to mean
something more than freedom, more
than reading Emily Dickinson before drowsing off...
It was not until I reached this peak
that I could see
the birds or Emily fully
from above.
Born again,
by seeing trees for the first time too
we are blessed by birds and nests
the air we share, the weight we don't...

and a wee spotted wood-pecker
that taps the fence post
by the rain gauge

Or the Orioles
befriended by our two brother crows
from when the ficus finally got cut

And that Cardinal
caught by the cat,
¡olé!

Yellow-bellied fly-catchers
curious about coming insde-
demanding even!

Hummingbirds in harems at the fountains
and in your face, buzzing your body
as though they own the sweet place.

A lion's lair
with four proud but lazy cats
on the prowl
Those falcon feathers we found
must have been provoked in part
by the mockingbirds.

Homey chaste egrets
cruise the coast
high and aloof
cool and superior.

Pet parrots, emancipated avians,
piss people off, like loud immigrants
simply because they cannot understand
the squawk, making crackers into crumbs.

Couples of doves,
whose coos irk none-
because we relate to love
and at some point read Emily-
observing migration
in a dream or wide awake
from up here
it symbolizes liberty
in limbs.


Image By Jerry Segraves (en:User:Jsegraves99) (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/byways/photos/64091) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Fence-lines

The grey fence
leans sleepishly against the morning fog
that lay dew upon the field
which will turn into pixie dust
as the plain rolls into the suns warm gaze.

Before the birds
muster a lilt to try;
the sound of swimming
between tidal flows of atmosphere
immersed, they listen to the mist.

A dappled doe blinks its black eyes
rapidly twitching its ears
seeking the source of the crunch
by the hare munching greens for breakfast,
whose nose twitches up
at the white whir of a hurried wind

chalking up the slate of new day.
A heavy scream shatters the stillness
as the birds scatter in spider cracks
folded inside, the echo
doesn't bother coming back.

What was here
always moving on.



Photograph by © Dietmar Rabich, rabich.de [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0), CC BY-SA 3.0 de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Echo-interpretation

Few knew
how little we were
hoping to be noticed

Not that
they wanted more
and less to be seen
here

Some found
they never heard
(of) the likes of you
before

Some sought
outside as outcasts
too frigidly
accommodating

Some stayed
in place and inside
by the fire
alit with artistic rage

Not many
more than we
can handle
touching
poetry
without scalding
the tips

And know
none pine
for ringing cedars, pet rocks
or chop words, but quarry
here
for the echo...


Image of painting By Adolf Mosengel (1837-1885) (Dorotheum) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Luc(in)da

You again, I say
As though I dreamt
We had never met.









Image by Evelyn De Morgan [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, Night and Sleep (c. 1878).

Poetry Athiest

Through This
I have met wonderful words
Via verse
I have become Estranged
By thinking
This way
I have situated
and I have
sat while yours waited
Saturated myself in vocabulary
languished and lingered
here,
seeking how to mean
more,
but saying it wrong
and left you hanging
bifurcating and circumventing
all crystal-clear communication.

Through This
I have seen wonderous worlds
Making
I have molded and manipulated
matter, made grey,
so I could see both
Art and Science
poetically-particulately
condensed
essentially
and failed
to Make sense
This-
Density, I have done
I reason
and found None.




Image credit-By 'Not given' [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, c. 1920.

Nom de plume

My pen tells me All
I need to know about Me
More than thought could say












By George Shuklin (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

In the company of strangers

I thought...
Perhaps she wasn't as lonely
as she thought she was...

Perhaps she wasn't able to see
the difference between wanting
to be thought about
and thinking she was wanted...

She was perhaps mistaking
that forgotten feeling
for need...

I thought
being alone
this long, intentionally
she would see, she shows me
her life had been precisely the way
she wanted
it to be, in gratitude for solitude...

I thought wrong
she said she wanted a man
more than she could stand
since she had not planned
for the golden years
or for the gold she knew
she was due...

She was sure
after all those silver lined years
she still had insecure fears
and had forgotten all about
how much
she thinks of herself,
and what she wants.
She is all she will ever need...

A lone she
in a crowd of couples.


Image by Jurij Šubic [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.