Poems About Flight, Flying and Birds Iii

Poems about Flight, Flying, and Birds (III) Songstress by Michael R. Burch Within its starkwhite ribcage, how the heart must flutter wildly, O, and always sing against the pressing darkness: all it knows until at last it feels the numbing sting of death. Then life's brief vision swiftly passes, imposing night on one who clearly saw. Death held your bright heart tightly, till its maw– envenomed, fanged–could swallow, whole, your Awe. And yet it was not death so much as you who sealed your doom; you could not help but sing and not be silenced. Here, behold your tomb's white alabaster cage: pale, wretched thing! But you'll not be imprisoned here, wise wren! Your words soar free; rise, sing, fly, live again. Performing Art by Michael R. Burch Who teaches the wren in its drab existence to explode into song? What parodies of irony does the jay espouse with its sharp-edged tongue? What instinctual memories lend stunning brightness to the strange dreams of the dull gray slug —spinning its chrysalis, gluing rough seams— abiding in darkness its transformation, till, waving damp wings, it applauds its performance? I am done with irony. Life itself sings. Lean Harvests by Michael R. Burch for T.M. the trees are shedding their leaves again: another summer is over. the Christians are praising their Maker again, but not the disconsolate plover: i hear him berate the fate of his mate; he claims God is no body’s lover. My Forty-Ninth Year by Michael R. Burch My forty-ninth year and the dew remembers how brightly it glistened encrusting September,... one frozen September when hawks ruled the sky and death fell on wings with a shrill, keening cry. My forty-ninth year, and still I recall the weavings and windings of childhood, of fall... of fall enigmatic, resplendent, yet sere,... though vibrant the herald of death drawing near. My forty-ninth year and now often I've thought on the course of a lifetime, the meaning of autumn, the cycle of autumn with winter to come, of aging and death and rebirth... on and on. Keywords/Tags: flight, fly, flying, bird, birds, hawks, plover, wren, songbird, cage, song