Blackbird Amore
They manifest
like a sprinkling of ash on the dawn,
congregating motes from a far heaven.
They are annunciations in blue-black
shimmering in the young cattails
with the wing’s red badge
that says, I am of the garrison of joy
and I have come
And I am not Icarus and I am not
a barn swallow,
Nor am I a disconsolate sparrow
with her half-hearted motet,
or the barrio crow clacking for scraps,
or the furtive owl
sitting high in the oak
like a jaded bartender.
.
I sing Verdi, you sing Mozart.
I sing today and you sing tomorrow.
We are the small and temporal things
appearing in the corner of your eye
when you flash past,
Warbling in our epaulettes,
strafing the marsh
to route the hovercraft
of the dragonfly,
Trumping the laggard lark
with our midair pirouettes,
ballet rouge in the empire of love.
copyright Jenne' R. Andrews 2010-2012
9 comments:
You employ birds to such wonderful effect in your poems, Jenne, filling each stanza not only with evocative pictures but sounds.
Jenne - brava! I love your poetry. It sings, it flies, it bleeds and it cries. You capture so much in a few words. It is like a feast!
ballet rouge in the empire of love...i like all the natural elelments jenne...the dragon fly, the birds...its a dance of life...
We are the small and temporal things
appearing in the corner of your eye
when you flash past
like those lines much...
This is just stunning, Jeanne. It captures the elation that goes with the quick sight of those red wings--I especially like the Verdi Mozart lines as they somehow manage to rhyme. The congregating motes--the small and temporal things--a congregating motet here--just terrific.
Thanks for your kind words about my poem, which is rather a modest one, but I have been very very very busy with work, and doing a new poem a day and didn't feel linking up one of the posts of the draft poems. My best was probably my own blackbird one--though they are not red-winged blackbirds--you don't have to go to it - a joke on Wallace Stevens. K.
I love this blackbird pride. Each bird must think he is THE bird, singing, dancing in air, fluffing & pruning, and basically showing off.
Just beautiful, Jen. There is something here beyond what I see and feel, something that makes me linger, just like the bird's song.
Loved this:
I sing Verdi, you sing Mozart.
I sing today and you sing tomorrow.
We are the small and temporal things
appearing in the corner of your eye
when you flash past,
Wonderfully lyrical, with your words punctuating the air like birdsong or the flutter of wings.
Immensely enjoyable, amazing command of the craft. This resonates so deeply because it verges on perfection... really. I can come back to this and enjoy it for many many reasons, its music, its lilt, its deep awareness of joy and sorrow. The poem manifests nature's power in a very real, tangible way, as though you were Ariel herself commanding the spirits to dance at your command. Lovely.
This speaks to me of confidence... I really like the second an last stanza.
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