A WELL TRAVELED HEART

Tag: birds

  • NESTS

    NESTS

    The whole place we built by hand
    not just paper and paint.
    We hung rafters from the sky
    a chimney and bright metal roof
    which sang in every rain.
    We walked blank land and invented
    life anew in the Blue Ridge
    as if anyone ever starts again.
    Years later a blind date remarked
    “You’ve spent your life on houses.”
    True. Like a nest-obsessed bird, I’ve
    painted my way from town to town
    designing space for friends and music,
    tables to sit at and chairs to read in.
    I envisioned a family unlike
    my scattered patchwork
    which rarely gathers where I live.
    All that time and work
    for a life dreamed of
    a love desired – perhaps that’s
    why birds have not just nests
    but wings.
  • NOTICE

    NOTICE

    A blue jay struts across the porch
    to forage in our planters.
    The red streak at eye level's a cardinal.
    White “ribbons” wrap the trees - plastic prayer flags
    to a God, gnome or Goddess unknown.
    A cuban lizard pulls one off
    the live oak on the corner.
    As I leave Johnnie’s Bakery,
    an Agama, his head and tail stripe
    the color of children’s aspirin,
    races ahead of me.
    Johnnie’s bread has the taste of hope
    hand-made, crusty, fresh.
    So too does the air, laced with scent of
    gardenia, magnolia and surf. 
    Beauty confounds the thought of so many dead.
    Mourners bereft of goodbye are blind
    with grief while fear heightens others'senses.
    How can such extremes of bliss and horror
    cohabit this planet?
    The return of wildlife, clean air and
    quiet seas make it clear
    this earth can shrug us off
    without notice.