BROWN BIRD
[it’s not enough to weep]
"As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place." [Proverbs 27:18, The Holy Bible, KJV]
Thinking of Charles Bukowski
there's a brown bird in my heart that
has flown great distances, searching for answers
I sent her forth into the darkness
before dawn each day,
out along the stillness of the waters
and the broken reeds, that had marked my way.
I said, fly hard, fly strong, I'm not going
to let you rest
until both of us collapse.
there's a brown bird in my heart that
wants to bring me back, the light she has known,
but I have taken a different path,
while she journeyed hard and long,
so that when she returns
I pour out my poetry on her and inhale
cigarette smoke of others,
and try to smile amongst strangers,
at the venues of the forsaken,
where I never belonged.
there's a brown bird in my heart that
waits for the end to all suffering,
but my poetic meanderings,
confused and obscured her,
I say,
stay hidden, do you want to be revealed
where there is no love?
do you want to upset the literary apple cart?
There is a time to soar and a time
to stay hidden.
there's a brown bird in my heart,
who, having flown through all seasons, now
waits for spring, but I'm terribly lost,
so I only release her
in the wildest places,
where lingering voices, dissolve into wind.
I say,
I will keep you inside me, forever
so don't be
dismayed. We’re in this together.
then I put her back,
but I am unable to stifle her,
and she's singing a song,
that I half remember
of a man, I saw die, a long time ago.
and the closer he comes,
the louder
she sings,
until the light of his presence,
dissolves our prisons within,
and she's singing a song,
of one who named us, his doves,
when we were
still
brown birds.
"I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine." [Psalms 50:11, The Holy Bible, KJV] |
