Although I Am Not-Bird, I Still Sang Its Song
I.
And I felt,
more than heard
the song rise up
from my throat,
the gasp,
so like prayer—
a paean,
an ode—
and my heart
was saying
that all was joy,
as the bird
shot up from the lawn
and let its wings carry it
straight up into the
cloud of branches
and the branches shook and
the bird disappeared.
II.
And I felt
triumphant
and magnified and small,
all at once.
III.
(I have seen a bird fly up
through these branches before,
but today,
this bird,
in its dazzling ascent—
hallowed me,
bowed me to its force).
IV.
And then I thought—
what was I, but bones
and sinew and muscle and veins
and what was this bird
but the same?
And yet—
I was altered, changed,
as if I wore a laurel leaf crown!
V.
But the bird—still,
it was sameness,
it was bird.
VI.
And then—I am sure—
the garden began to sing,
and the grass, too,
and who was I, but song and prayer
and stillness?
And not-bird.
.
Review
Once, for about ten minutes,
I lost my favorite pair of purple
L.L. Bean mittens and was taken down
By grief.
We found them in the film society’s
“Lost and Found” bucket, behind the
concession stand, a box with a rather arbitrary
name for my loss.
Once, I could not find my book, for a little
bit longer and grew raw with regret for
such a happening.
Often, I found things long buried that I
Had forgotten the names of and because
I’d found them again, I declared them lost
in the first place, and raged at the offense.
Then, I stepped outside and saw the trees
losing their leaves, and
the birds lost their song to
the air, but I caught them
and kept them in my head.
And after the squirrels
Had picked and then
Lost their nuts, had
Lost and then hoarded them back up, again,
the birds gave their songs to those who
would listen, with knowledge, with duty.
I thought to myself, “Why?” and how their loss
had registered with them as
Sanctity, as performance,
But my roots had been cut,
As if the spinal masonry keeping
me rooted had fled.
Repeatedly humbled,
I stood in the face of
their truths, and
I resolved.
.
Bracha K. Sharp was published in the American Poetry Review, the Birmingham Arts Journal, Sky Island Journal, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Wild Roof Journal, and Rogue Agent, among others. She placed first in the national Hackney Literary Awards, and she was a finalist in the New Millennium Writings Poetry Awards. As her writing notebooks seem to end up finding their way into different rooms, she is always finding both old pieces to revisit and new inspirations to work with. She is a current reader for the Baltimore Review. www.brachaksharp.com
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Stone Poetry Quarterly 