
The following poem is posted in honor of Flannista's oldest sister, who celebrates a birthday today. Thank you, dear sister, for teaching me how to "sing". Also in exactly one month, Flann turns "the page from fifty-nine to sixty."
You beak-chattering blaze of blue,
patch of sky squatting on a power line,
teach me to cock my head, too.
Together, we'll watch -- what is there to see
in Tennessee? July can only shrug,
after a night's caterwaul of katydids.
Now, into the deserted street, a fawn tiptoes
from the woods toward well-tamed lawn.
A dead branch moves, doe rustling to life.
You keep singing, bird, and no one minds,
but I have drawn breath too noisily --
toward me, eyes carved of obsidian turn.
Into mossy ears as big as a man's cupped hand
a clamor pours: somewhere beneath us,
a mole shoves earth from one dark to another.
Blood blunders through the chambers of my heart.
My life waits to turn the page from fifty-nine to sixty.
A feather too blue to be real -- how long does it last?
-- "To An Eastern Bluebird" by Debora Greger
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