Where Feathers Go When They Fall
All night, dreams of birds
and flight. Tickled awake,
my mouth fills with feathers,
goldfinch, warbler, starling.
I yawn and breathe, inhalation
of air and feathers. Blue sky
pulls me to the window.
Arms folded at the elbow
flap and flap like wings.
I balance on the ledge,
tumble and glide into blue.
Morning scurries by
on two clawed feet. Head
bobbing, beak pecking
green blades—a strange
new appetite for worms,
and oh, delight! I consume
and consume. Outside
the house where I once lived,
I build a nest of silken floss
and tiny twigs, watch the lives
on the other side, and bless
this freedom. Home is a tree
now, children hatched
and gone, none to peck
my heart. I do not worry
or grieve, only imagine them
in tall trees, too high for
cat’s paw, and go back
to fumbling for worms.
My trills and tweets, pitch
perfect, fill the air with song.
I ruffle the forsythia, azalea,
andromeda, dip into
the bath and splash off
the long winter, shaking
my multi-colored plumage,
not one feather of cardinal,
scarlet bird bound for life,
such binding once
will suffice. The love
I have is for the daffodils.
All night, dreams of birds
and flight. Tickled awake,
my mouth fills with feathers,
goldfinch, warbler, starling.
I yawn and breathe, inhalation
of air and feathers. Blue sky
pulls me to the window.
Arms folded at the elbow
flap and flap like wings.
I balance on the ledge,
tumble and glide into blue.
Morning scurries by
on two clawed feet. Head
bobbing, beak pecking
green blades—a strange
new appetite for worms,
and oh, delight! I consume
and consume. Outside
the house where I once lived,
I build a nest of silken floss
and tiny twigs, watch the lives
on the other side, and bless
this freedom. Home is a tree
now, children hatched
and gone, none to peck
my heart. I do not worry
or grieve, only imagine them
in tall trees, too high for
cat’s paw, and go back
to fumbling for worms.
My trills and tweets, pitch
perfect, fill the air with song.
I ruffle the forsythia, azalea,
andromeda, dip into
the bath and splash off
the long winter, shaking
my multi-colored plumage,
not one feather of cardinal,
scarlet bird bound for life,
such binding once
will suffice. The love
I have is for the daffodils.
The Stone in My Mushroom Barley Soup
Hard and white, asymmetrical and jagged,
small as a fragment of tooth.
The tongue went in fear, probed the top
of each molar, incisor, and bicuspid,
circled front and back, then sighed
with relief like a mother who has found
all her children home and safe.
Throughout the day the tongue composed
a song of joy, paid tribute to each tooth
for its endurance, its loyalty all these years,
for not crumbling, not breaking,
not even against the hard assault
of stone, seemingly come from nowhere,
the way danger sometimes does--
like a brick tossed off a bridge,
or your neighbor’s Doberman unchained,
or the pickup truck running a red light
just as you’re headed home from work,
thinking about spaghetti and meatballs.
All night, while the rest of my body slept,
the tongue, still connected to my heart,
forgave the soup its treachery,
and tucked among the pearls and silver,
sang its love song, the notes soft as barley.
“Why yellow makes me sad”
-Geico commercial
O! the paradox of lemons,
persistence of dandelions,
coins snatched from behind the magician’s ear,
goldfinches that feed upside down,
snow to be avoided but marked as such,
and those freaks in the garden, sunflowers,
the coward’s streak, the light that cautions,
line that can’t be crossed,
the sun and sometimes the vacillating moon,
banana peels before they turn brown,
goldenrod with its frantic sneezing,
grilled cheese sandwiches, American and cheddar,
and yellow beyond reason, Anne Gregory’s hair,
fall leaves, summer wheat, and corn in season,
mustard, saffron, and a whiff of sulfur,
indecisive emblem of hope, happiness, and deceit,
hazard signs, hard hats, and crime scene tape,
mourning clothes in Egypt,
fruit of the pineapple inside its armadillo hide,
zuchinnis, peppers, and geocentric onions,
the man who runs, yellowbellied and lily-livered,
ribbon tied around a tree when someone’s missing,
teeth when they grow old,
journalism and egg yolks,
Yellow-shafted Flicker, Yellowfin tuna,
peridot, topaz, and diamond,
ménage à trois with red and blue,
a kind of fever and its vector, the mosquito,
yellow jackets buzzing in forsythia,
crocus, tulips, and the rose of Texas,
school bus, taxicab, the Beatles’ submarine,
Picasso’s jug and his woman’s hair,
penalty flag in football,
emergency vehicles by the side of the road,
Coldplay’s song—everything he did for her, yellow,
Mountain Dew and Galliano,
the hills of California in a certain kind of light,
amber glow of memory,
color of terror, every phone call that comes in the night,
color that comes unbidden when I have called for blue,
the wheel broken, the spot empty and desolate,
blue without its complementary color.
Diane Lockward is the author of three poetry books, most recently, Temptation by Water (Wind Publications, 2010).Her poems have been included in such anthologies as Poetry Daily: 360 Poems from the World's Most Popular Poetry Website and Garrison Keillor's Good Poems for Hard Times and in such journals as Harvard Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her work has also been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac.