Posts Tagged ‘bird’

Feathery Hope

Tuesday, January 16th, 2018

A fragile and feathery hope grows in my chest
It tickles my ribcage and brushes against my cheeks
Like the kiss of a bird’s wing as it takes flight.
The moment suspended
Between the weight of the world
And the unburdened sky.

Small and tender hearted
This alien thing grows inside of me.
At night I feed it quietly with whispered dreams
And words I am too afraid to say aloud.
I do not yet know whether it will become
Friend or foe to me as it grows.

My mind crushes it slowly with sharp edges
Predicted in the cloudy sphere
Of crystal balls and etched lines in overworked palms.
But still at night, when the lights have disappeared
It is just me and the nascent hope
Evolving to be something more than me.

I refuse to let it die but only acknowledge it
In moments of secrecy stolen between
Sorrow and high-soaring ecstasy.
If I look it in the eye and declare its name
It may just consume me whole
Before I know how to control the chaos it brings.

I know I have been unfair to you
Born of such happiness and light
But forced to be a creature of darkest night;
I made you into this monster
Out of the fear that if I held you too tight
You would disappear faster than a bird taking flight.

Now you are with me forever
Etched into every bone
Like the words of a love letter
That never found a heart to call home.
This ribcage you once inhabited
Transformed into a cage you will never escape.

I feel you waking up again
Testing the limits of your confines
With a wingspan broader than the horizon.
I hear you tapping against my bones
A morse code warning of all we could be
Or a threat that soon you may break free.

My chest creaks under the pressure of your presence
Small yet persistent, this fragile thing
Begins to break through my bones
Like a flower growing through the cracks in the pavement
Yearning for the sun’s light and fresh air.
I can contain you no longer.

Will this creature be beautiful or broken?
Maybe it will be a bit of both.
Heavy with my whispered dreams and secret hopes
Will it be able to take flight?
My fragile and feathery hope takes wing
Leaving me behind to wonder at our small destiny.

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Posted in Photos, Poetry |

Mission of Mercy

Tuesday, March 19th, 2013

The robins came in the rain
To take the worms away.
Mother told me they were drowning
And the birds lent their wings
For a rescue mission
That taught the creatures
Of the earth, what the sky
Felt like beyond just a dream.
That the robins whisked them away
From mud puddles deeper
Than the well I watch Father dig
That seemed to stretch from earth
Back to sky all over again.
Mother told me worms couldn’t swim
Because their arms never grew right.
Kind of like how I never grew right.
Will the robins save me
When the waters come too high?
Of course they will honey,
And they will teach you to fly.

But Mother lied.
I watch the robin’s beak pierce
The earth like a kraken’s claw
Dividing land from sea
But the way was not clear
And the sojourners never made it through.
The worms surface from the earth
Hoping to find air that wasn’t drowning
In water, but the water was rising fast
Into a flood that would sweep them away.
The jaws of hungry animals
Pried into the earth and wrenched
Their bodies from the softened ground
Like daisies fresh for picking
Even though they were ready,
They where ripped from their roots
Body, soul, and all to be devoured
It was no rescue mission but a massacre masked
In the form of a red breasted beast

I sat watching through fogged windows
And wondered, if these monsters with wings
Veiled their murder in missions of mercy
What would my rescuer be?

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Posted in Poetry |

Egret Eyes

Sunday, March 3rd, 2013

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My mind is full of egret eyes.
Swiveling movement like the weight
At the end of a fishing line,
Pulling the hook serrated and sharp
Into the darkest parts of the sea
That only fish with grey translucent eyes
Can see with something more than sight
That illuminates the darkest parts of this world.

I feel disturbed like the jellied eye
Of a fish left too long in the sun;
Poked by innocent hands seeking fun.
My mind is pierced by shrieks of delight
As children run away, cringing in fright;
A game played by children in a twilight too dark
To be anything else but night.

Plucked from the sea by the dagger
Of a spear fishing egret
Perched atop a craggy rock out at sea,
The open mouthed, lipless screams
Of a fish out of water takes on new meaning.

My mind is full of egret eyes.
Preying with the majestic form of a killer,
Guised in beauty and lithe gossamer gowns
Of a white so pure it can only be called snowy.
But the bones buried beneath the snow
Remain unseen, hidden by layer and layer of white
So pure it can almost conceal the death in your eye
That pivots like a ballerina’s pirouette.

The bird opens wide its wings.
Wings of feathery white willing a skyward escape
Like a shot in the dark and a bullet left in a tree trunk
Because the wood won’t feel the burn, Right?
Just as a wriggling earthworm doesn’t feel the pierce
Of a hook dissecting its body into perfect segments
Like it was meant to be split by the greedy hands of men.
Did the fish see the pain as the worm was plunged
Into the depths of an element it didn’t understand?

These murky waters mean nothing to the eyes of a predator
As the egret dips its streamlined head into the water
Pulling forth its sacrifice of sea life.
The egret pushes itself from the rock in the middle of the sea
To return to its native country of sky clad creatures.
Bringing with it an unwilling victim of circumstance
Caught in the clutches of death, even the victim had to smile;
It was on this day, a fish learned to fly.

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Posted in Poetry |

Finding Fantasy in Reality

Wednesday, December 26th, 2012

Some where in the back of my mind I have always known I lived in an exceptional place, it just wasn’t often that I cared to appreciate it. I used to make up stories about adventures in far away lands and imagine myself in a thousand places, anywhere but home. The exciting and the extraordinary was always beyond that next mountain or underneath the crashing waves of the sea, but never did I look at the mountains or the ocean right in front of me.

This is not to say that I didn’t love growing up in Santa Cruz, because I did and still do, it just simply means I never saw the fantastical qualities that I dreamed of in the place where I lived my everyday life. I never realized the fairy circles in the redwoods, or the glint of the sun on the sea, the way the wind swept across grassy hillside like a fingers running through feather soft hair. The world I felt I had to create when I was younger, was the world I was already residing in, I just didn’t know it yet.

Maybe it was when I left for college, or maybe it has been a building wave that has been gathering for some time within me, all I know now is the overwhelming appreciation and awe I have for my home in Santa Cruz.

There is so much I love about Santa Cruz; I realize that I do not have to escape this place to find adventure or fantastical things, I just need to step out of my front door. That is why for Christmas we stuck around town and for our Christmas Day we went hiking along the Davenport Bluffs and then took in the stormy skies from the Santa Cruz Wharf. It is nice to take a vacation in your own town, to make the everyday new again in the most exciting of ways.

Look upon your world with new eyes and see what there is to find. You may just be surprised to behold the imaginary world you spent your whole life searching for.

 

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Posted in Photos, Thoughts |

Bird Shots 2

Sunday, January 9th, 2011

Slowly but surely through constant effort, I am getting better at getting the bird shot. Here are some new attempts for bird shots.

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Posted in Photos |