There Was A Woman With Birds

there was a woman with birds

in her forest, in her house, on her shoulders

she learned the language of crows

sparrows and swallows

and spoke in tongues of hummingbirds

in her room was a bird in a cage

who ground his beak on a cuttlebone

she drew in gesso and garnished with mica

and the bird knew her

and she knew the bird

and the bird taught her to sing

out in a great pine was a dove

who taught her the sounds of mourning

and she sorrowed at sounds that wound

through her trellis and through her open window

and curled in her hair over night

an owl who should have been wise enough

to know who she was

questioned her incessantly

until she revealed her old name

that came from gullies and great hills

and mountains that whispered it to her

there was a woman with birds in her hair

where small wings could be hidden

by tucking them under a curl or chignon

or wrapped into a baby blond ringlet

this woman had a swan on her back

who drew its great wings around her

when she was found

alone as a chick in a nest overnight

and her mouth drawn to an O

of despair at a thousand thousand tortures

of memories of foxes and wolves

and things that look for downed things in the dark

a woman with birds knows every intonation

in old stories of old women and old birds

who fall and who rise and songs that go with it

for in one lifetime she was a bird with women

in her forest, in her house, on her shoulders…….

©Carol Desjarlais 2.22.12