Last year I bought a journaling application for my PC that I planned to use for drumming up ideas for poems and for logging lines and fragments that could later be expanded upon. The seed lines for this poem were among the last entries made in the journal prior to my finding out in November that my wife has cancer.
Dislodged
Your raucous call is the sound
of an old friend knocking
at the door. One not seen
in many years.
I look up and my lungs fill
with long sighs of affection
as your broad black wings
flurry lightly north and west.
Where you go each day
the moment daylight pulls
your roosts from shadow,
I do not know.
I cannot follow your omens
over street signs and power lines,
over the tired old grid
of run-down homes and businesses,
over the brick, wood, and chain-link
fences that partition every block.
Yet I swear my heart lifts from its
white cage and chases after,
leaving me just a little empty.
Sometimes I think you carry
my spirit to me. Sometimes
it seems you carry it away.
We are bound, and I know
you know. Karma is a twisted thing,
involuted with the daily
struggle to survive,
the ancient force of past being
that somehow led to now, and every
hidden longing that forever
tugs at my soul.
Sometimes a feather drifts down
and settles by the curb. Maybe
I am that feather.
Maybe long ago
I was dislodged from the body
of my flock and left behind
to settle into the sod. Maybe I am
fallen feather become man,
forever grounded, looking on
as black wings call with stern regard
from beyond the constricting ache
of warehouse walls.
I work the night shift at a group home for at-risk teens. This home is in a renovated warehouse in a neighborhood that is zoned for both businesses and residences. Before waking the kids in the morning, I’ll gather my things and take them out to my car, which I park in a gated courtyard. During those times of the year when this coincides with nautical dawn, a massive storytelling of ravens will fly directly overhead.
I’ll hang out and watch until the last straggler flies by, then I’ll go inside. A lot of them will tilt their heads sideways as they pass, making direct eye contact. Once in a while one or two will land on the top of the building, perching at the edge to watch and sometimes interact with me before continuing on. No matter my mood, I’m always in better spirits after spending a few moments with these creatures.
