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 had 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
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