Song Sparrow – 2012 posting

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Wood carving by Bob McCausland

 

Oh garden bird,

you kept a wild heart

between your ribs

as you danced the morning breeze

and darted circles

through the phlox.

Your last song

was forgiveness

to the cat

before you died.

Let me hold your empty body

till I feel again the pulse

of swaying hills

and flying trees.

My wings spread

with your feathers

as we both reclaim the sky.

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(c) 1995, 2017 Betty Hayes Albright

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Wood carving of Song Sparrow by my Uncle Bob McCausland in 1994 – a gift for my grandmother’s 100th birthday.

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Phoenix

(for S.P., written in 1992)

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Into the funeral pyre

went all he had created –

poems, books, ideas,

the imagery of his life.

None of it is real,

he cried,

except this smoke and ash!

His anguished voice

cried out into the hills

and echoed back,

a knife

to pierce his soul.

And so for many days

he ate the ash

and breathed the smoke

till nothing else remained

but one undying ember.

He sighed, and as he did

his breath fanned the glow

into a warm diamond light

that rose into the sky,

and there at last he saw it,

his own brilliance on the pages

as he took up his pen

and began to write again.

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(c)  1992, 2012  Betty Hayes Albright

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