Let That Birdy Fly!

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #172

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This image is also inspired by Shay's new book Gypsy Bird Cage.

Click on the title to see it on Amazon! 💝

“Strange how we decorate pain.”

― Margaret Atwood

 

A child carries a broken heart a certain way

much differently than an old man can

he does not hide it behind a curtain nor door

where no one else is allowed to stand

he bravely holds it out in the open

bare like feet out in the rain

stepping out in the puddled path

vulnerable yet willing to show the pain

for a broken heart can hold so many things

It can take in all that is hurt and lost

keeping it safe and nestled close

like a sheltered bird at freedom’s cost

the homeless sleep there with nowhere else to rest

how do you send away such a hurting soul?

the walls are lined with a menagerie of relics

 heavy with the silence of tales untold

and a child will tell and sing the songs

with every fall that scrapes his knees and heart

but with time he learns to hush the cry

like an old man who cannot hear the breaking news at dark

for the fool will hold on like a warden and his keys

never letting go of hurt till the day he dies

but the wiser one will unlock the cage

and he will simply let that birdy fly!

Belonging is More Than a Place,

 

When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind. ~Seneca

 

You don’t have to be a ship to be wrecked

Nor do you have to be in peril to be lost at sea

Yet we lose our way on the gravel road

Where we forgot our atlas and the key

The seagull knows where he is headed

The black bird always knows his place

But mankind loses his footing and purpose

Always running in a hollow race

You don’t have to be a ship to be wrecked

Nor be in peril to be lost at sea

But you need to know your purpose

If you want to know where it is you should be.

 

 

Lost is a Lonely Place on a Busy Street

 Photography by Artist, Jasper James

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #168

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For a while I climbed the ladder,
not realizing I’d placed it
against the wrong house. The window
I tried to look into was a mirror.
I fell backward into the world.

-Stephen Dunn

 

I lost you before you were truly gone

Like money at the races or bullets from a fool’s gun

Some hurts are hard to recover from

 and some places just cannot be left behind

a lost little girl

that had never left home

still stands at the curb of a busy street

and hesitates to go

speaking up and walking away are harder than they look

no one ever explained that to me

I just learned it as I went

You see,  silence preaches louder than you think

Skinned up knees leave a more enduring mark

Than road signs warning, slippery when wet

Those scars join us in the journey

We carry them along

Like children too tired to walk any further

That is how we learn strength is many things

More than lifting steal and running far

Yes, I lost you before you were truly gone

Like whiskey from a cracked bottle

That always leaves a mess behind

It took me years to see how lost that truly left me

Yet to find our true direction

We must first realize we are lost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Time In the Pool, 1975

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse#166

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Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is. ~German proverb

 

When I was a child I did not go into the deep end  

swimming is hard to learn when you never leave dry land

I lingered at the shallow side

 needing to have my feet touch the bottom of the pool

the only thing I truly learned that day

was to hold on to the side tight

you see my fear of the loss of control gripped me even tighter

fear is a harsh teacher

it can bruise and it can maim  

providing a true regret

that sticks with you like a heavy meal on a hot day

the kind that leaves you thirsty and parched

yet it is there that courage can immerge

in the longing to quench the deepest of thirsts

when hands reach out

you learn to let go of the sides

and venture deeper in

for that is the only way to learn

and get where you surely need to be.

A Grieving Heart is a Door Ajar,

 Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #162

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Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows... ~William Shakespeare

 

Flight is but a haunted memory

so I don’t need wings to travel far

regret can be a boarded window

yet a broken door that stands ajar

heartache is a house that creeks and moves

like an old woman’s legs in winter tend to do

we hold our memories

and peer at grief

believing in ghosts

 others may never see

yet still they leave and appear

 like finger prints on glass

drinking from cups and saucers

we will never have

they follow and lead

they hold our hand

they make us stumble

yet help us stand

for yesterday was a lost child with tangled hair

today is a black bird with a lonesome stare

tonight is the moon’s reflection everywhere I go

and tomorrow a baby I shall nestle close

the reminders enter from near and far

broken and bent like a door ajar.

 

 

 

 

A Million Menageries,

 Surreal Art by Catrin Welz-Stein

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #161

where we are writing, sharing and celebrating my amazing poet friend Shay's birthday!!

“One need not be a chamber to be haunted; One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing Material place.”  ~ Emily Dickinson

 

You ask me what lies to the west?

What cracks open my sky like a treasure chest?

As if secrets were never meant to be kept!

Yet I only look towards the eastern sky.

Longing for birds that have already flown by,

With a cage in my hand and hope in my eyes.

Holding memories like broken glass with no gloves.

Some questions have no answer my love,

And some answers are never enough!

The Gate Keeper

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #160.  Hosted this week by my fabulously talented poet friend Shay!   Come join us!

"To dare is to lose one's footing.  To not dare is to lose oneself."   ~ Soren Kierkegaard

In the marvel of our youth we eagerly open every gate

yearning to reach and feel everything under the sun

like blind hands

that do not know what lies ahead

but as the quilted blanket always dries on the line

under the mid-day sun

colors fade

edges tatter and tear with time

caution takes hold

like a tight winter coat

we long for shelter

learning to lock doors with prudent hands

we view the horizon from closed windows

knowing all too well 

what lies ahead.

Note to self & the world:

Leave the gate unlocked with open hands and an open mind.

Dismal News in a Waiting Room 1972

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #158

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There are some griefs so loud
They could bring down the sky,
And there are griefs so still
None knows how deep they lie,
Endured, never expended.
~May Sarto

 

Sorrow does not need a safety net

the ghosts of loss and regret never do

they walk through walls

and dance on high beams with eyes closed

resilient like a Maytag appliance….they survive floods

follow us to new homes holding our hand

even as we reach out ours to the world

they watch us sleep filling our empty glass as only grief can do

I have spent nearly 50 years holding this truth

you can try to brace yourself

or try to let it go

but it quietly waits

in the silence of knowing

and the clatter of forgetfulness

a patient child waiting to speak

whether you acknowledge it or not

it is there

a whisper of remembering

that can transfix or move you

right back to 9 years old in a waiting room

with words of sympathy upon a loved one’s lips.

 

A Poem of Both Earth & Sky

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #157

“That a pansy is transitive, is its only pang.”  ~Emily Dickinson

Earth can always be broken

stirred and planted

made new

the gardener knows this

and the miracle it holds

 but men still build monuments

cement driveways and parking lots

he only sees what he wants to see

but like the gardener, children see greater things

 spirits and miracles of what can be

an unearthed flower that was once but a buried seed

for the flower is a poem of both earth and of sky

and reaches beyond the doorway of an old man's eyes

it is the true architecture of God.

Note: I wanted to write this in honor of Earth Day and in honor of all the trees that have been cut down.  Where I live there are no codes nor ordinances for building around trees, they just cut them all down and wonder why we are having so many flooding issues.

It is sad on so many levels; the carelessness, the damage,  and the loss!

Hope Leaps Like a Fox in Winter

 

Surreal Artwork by Ronald Ong

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #151

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Love must be as much a light as a flame. ~Henry David Thoreau

My weary hands ache

from all the holding on

and the letting go

that is the cost of greedy hands

 and a hasty heart

there was once a time

 when you were the warmth to my winter

the flame my hands held close to

but fast fires can only burn so long

the burning house sooner or later falls to ash

a rubble one must walk away from

the season comes and goes

but my heart always hopes for more

it leaps like a fox in winter

and holds tight to all it finds

it can be a heavy burden

in the loss of letting go.

 

 

 

The Magnificence of Hope

"Indigo Sky Mares" by Laurel Burch

Click HERE for her website.

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #147

Some things have to be believed to be seen. ~Ralph Hodgson

Magnificence surrounds us

it touches sky and souls like wings

it is all a true miracle

from birth to passing on

the freedom to inhale

to see and truly be

I am blessed to have known you

the one that made me surely see

the vision of hope is a freedom

a force as wild as horses with no fence

it is mine and yours to tame and ride

If only we truly will.