The art of poetry

There the trees waved, wind fingering through them,
Adolescent hair of their leaves thick with life and the promise
Of a burgeoning spring. This is the leaf hand. Flipping

Itself again and again as the wind twists the tiny wrists
Of the living limbs. Have you ever heard it said
That a poet will repeat herself as many times as there are

Dawns to get lost in? A professor once told me, to pay attention
To the ways the flitting bird of a poet’s syntax and diction
Moved through every poem like the wind is moving through

These trees now. Look, I’m not sure if it’s entirely true
But I do happen to notice the way Seamus Heaney spoke
Of stone and soil as though they were altars of his own

Choosing. And the way that sometimes I make a golden calf
Of the bird and thread him through the dense tapestry
Of my own poetry. Today, on the golden lawn-wind-flicked-

Pocked with a million eyes of violet, I saw a solitary grackle.
This is a bird I have never seen before except from afar
And in groups of dozens upon dozens staining the air

With their light-woken wings. How the sun hits those feathers
And clothes the birds in the richness of robes fit, once,
Only for kings. But, here, there was this solitary bird

Strutting around the back lawn dismantling the swollen
Heads of dandelion flowers that have gone to seed. And
Down low there, where the bird is bigger than the other

Things it eats and digs and dreams, that grackle
Filled his canopy with those tiny feathers of seed
As I sat beyond the window watching him wave

The inanimate to life. Where, there, the trees waved
Wind fingered through them, and a lost bird
Formed a kingdom when he found himself alone.

Author's Note

2020