The Hands That Hold the Bird
A picture from my childhood, long lost:
A sketched character, holding a bird.
I remember the hands, cupped:
the bird resting comfortably within.
It was free to fly away, I could see that.
But why would it, when it was held with
such tenderness?
I used to practice holding any small thing,
watching myself to see if I looked like him.
I loved this picture in the curious way children choose to love.
I love it still.
It stays in my mind, clasping with the surprising strength of a
newborn holding your finger.
Ineluctable.
I wonder if I have learned yet
how to hold the bird.
An Uneasy Beauty
We rarely see the world as an unhindered whole.
Instead, it is through a window: cracked
but not fully broken. The fissures are a
spider’s web: enhancing the view beyond with an
uneasy beauty.
But looking in through the window, the world sees us:
fragmented and fragile.
In truth, we are consummate in each moment
despite our ever-changing selves.
Infinitely unfinished, yet perfect,
as nature is.
Night Walk
Have you ever walked a long way in the dark?
Along lonely lanes between the fields,
the sky hollow in blackness.
Mounds of trees merging into no shape at all.
Your body as wide as the world, or as tiny as a flea.
You cannot tell its beginning or ending.
Your feet walk; your hands stretch in front of you for miles.
Your heart fills as you listen for sounds beyond the waves of leaves,
waving like waves in the sea.
You think you are lost, but the scent of the orange blossom tree reaches you: a thin strand, growing stronger and thickening to a rope until you are there beneath it.
The way from here is unearthly no longer.
You have found yourself.
"СВЯЗАННОЕ ЧТЕНИЕ" POEMS BY CAROLYN CHILTON CASAS: Becoming, Enveloped by the Tides and more»
изображение: Pixabay
