joy (four poems)

i. nestling

I woke today
to scrabbling in the nest,
an irresistible urge
to leap.
In looking past the edge
of all I knew
I saw a vast expanse,
alive and impossible,
and in taking a lungful of it
I knew that
embracing air
was all it would take.

So I woke to the world,
I woke to the sky,
and I took it as it stood:
empty and full.
In climbing to its back
I spread my wings
and met the ground
violently,
like an old friend.

And I knew I could
never walk again.

ii. albatross

The battered beams below
frame fathoms of color, and I am
as one who paints – immersed
in another world. The horizons
spread like boundary lines
of pleasant places,
pleasant all the more
for the freedom to stay within them,
and I journey,
awash in aquamarine.

Paint me an ocean
of far-off hope, brimming
with white-caps,
ringed ‘round about by
luminescent creatures,
an end to the longing.

The current lunges
sleek beneath me, and I am
as one who fights – forgetful
of another world. I taste salt
filming like blood, the scent of
quickening metal,
quickening all the more
for the unknown dangers below,
and I am lifted,
awash with fear and fire within.

Guide me by little lights
above and below, dimming
only when consumed
by brighter joys. Set me
upon the wind,
that I may end.

iii. snowbird

If not for
seed flung aside
by raucous jays,
the winter
would be lean.

If not for
vibrant plumage
that draws the gaze,
the talons
would be keen.

Let me be
small and brown
and content
with thistledown.

iv. blackbird

It’s always spring
when I hear it – feathers in the wind,
the hollow-boned chirrup
of the red-winged blackbirds.

They perch
perpendicular
upon the weathered posts,
old boundary spikes
at the edge of the next field,
naked of wire and lonely
as a wintered heart.
They perch there,
like petals pinned to bracken,
a thicket of red –
and they sing.

I don’t remember the song
until I hear it, but I think
the lonely thorns
can’t help but
love the rose.
And I, a passing soul,
remember things I’d forgotten
and go forth
rejoicing
with the blackbirds.