I.
Birds like me.
When I walk, a lone bird, often a cardinal, will land nearby. It used to be that birds would quickly lift as I neared, but that no longer happens, not since Rob died and I began to walk daily. Now birds stand still as if they might have a message I most need to hear.
II.
Birds do not visit me in groups.
Yes, they still gather on wires above and spread across the lawn during the early morning hunting for worms. From the opened window I can hear them calling to one another. But when I walk, birds arrive solo, reminding me that we have but this present moment.
Be still, each bird seems to say. Be here.
III.
Birds are more bridge than not.
They are an evolutionary bridge between the dead and us with their wings spanning a distance you and I cannot travel. The cardinal, I've been noticing, finds swift flight and slips the gravity of this world foregrounded in the patches of sky revealed between a tangle of tree branches.
And I ask, Who better to tell us where the dead go?
IV.
Birds don't always sing.
Against the rising moon, the birds have grown quiet alongside the darkness. Without their song, I have gotten lost among the light and shadow mistaking the foreground for the background. I have traveled beyond a place of comfort. And still I want to ask, What happens to the dead?
V.
Birds get lost.
They don't follow the cardinal rose. Direction is more myth than truth. What is essential still rests--not in their wings--but in our mortal hands.
VI.
Birds are rarely foolish, unlike me.
Some moments I feel stripped, a bit crazy, daft even. Grief will do that for in a world where a man like my husband can die so suddenly, all things good and dire are possible.
 |
| from my art journal, 6.24.16 (gesso, acrylic paint, alcohol inks, stabilo pencil, marker, digital remix). |
Birds like me.
When I walk, a lone bird, often a cardinal, will land nearby. It used to be that birds would quickly lift as I neared, but that no longer happens, not since Rob died and I began to walk daily. Now birds stand still as if they might have a message I most need to hear.
II.
Birds do not visit me in groups.
Yes, they still gather on wires above and spread across the lawn during the early morning hunting for worms. From the opened window I can hear them calling to one another. But when I walk, birds arrive solo, reminding me that we have but this present moment.
Be still, each bird seems to say. Be here.
III.
Birds are more bridge than not.
They are an evolutionary bridge between the dead and us with their wings spanning a distance you and I cannot travel. The cardinal, I've been noticing, finds swift flight and slips the gravity of this world foregrounded in the patches of sky revealed between a tangle of tree branches.
And I ask, Who better to tell us where the dead go?
IV.
Birds don't always sing.
Against the rising moon, the birds have grown quiet alongside the darkness. Without their song, I have gotten lost among the light and shadow mistaking the foreground for the background. I have traveled beyond a place of comfort. And still I want to ask, What happens to the dead?
V.
Birds get lost.
They don't follow the cardinal rose. Direction is more myth than truth. What is essential still rests--not in their wings--but in our mortal hands.
VI.
Birds are rarely foolish, unlike me.
Some moments I feel stripped, a bit crazy, daft even. Grief will do that for in a world where a man like my husband can die so suddenly, all things good and dire are possible.
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