Darlene
Read The Reflector x MRU Write Club in the list of writer portfolios or the print issue.
Sylvia Belcher |
Tell me again about the birds
How the starlings signal first spring.
Hold out cracked blue eggs
And tell me who belonged to them.
Show me the way you crow out into the sky
So a black feathered phantom will sweep down
Trusting enough to feed.
You are home here among the trees and the creatures
I see you, elven and wise.
Upon turning into your drive
I watch you, sat upon a stump.
Tangles of plants twine around your calves
Accepting you as their own.
You belong so much to the wild world,
I can’t imagine you caged and kept.
When you take me for a wander
Through your precious sanctuary of land
For me, you unearth every hidden thing.
Mushrooms bursting up from the ground
That bring forth plumes beneath your foot.
Tiny purple lamps of fairies
Grown in their own micro meadows.
Soft aspen skin that gifts chalky white powder
Spread upon faces to ward off scorching sun.
You seem solid as a wooden trunk,
Rooted.
Your skin wrinkles like bark,
Years of grooves written in.
You commune with God in the trees
Reached in ways church could not.
When we speak, we spar.
We throw wit like paper stars
Unfolding each one
To see their lines of creation.
I watch you twinkle
As I let forth my wildness.
Unabashed and honest.
I laugh without shame
And look challengers dead in the eye
Unflinching.
In the fields we watch hawks circle overhead.
You too have feathered wings
Marked by bands used to tie them.
You were too young
To stave off the hands that did.
I want to massage out the wounds,
Make your plumage lay smooth once more.
Despite its grooves, it shines.
In your eyes is a girl with a snake round her neck
Reigning terror over city folk
Defiantly steadfast
Refusing her skirts
Flashing animal teeth and shrieking for freedom.
But they twisted your small limbs
And crammed you in a box
Which might have been your coffin
If you’d lain.
But you scratched
Till at once
You clawed your way out
Shredding your cardboard prison.
Like a feline far from home
You at last made your escape
Back to the prairie
Guided by an inner compass begging your getaway.
When I hunt down my ambitions,
It is for you.
You and our long lineage of those told to sit down.
My wings beat relentlessly,
Sun break to set
Fuelled by thoughts of aprons and regrets
And generations of heavy fists.
I refuse to be silenced
No heavy-racked buck will ever make me small.
When I dream, it will be of you on your land
Digging in your feet and declaring
Making clear
You will not be dragged from your sanctuary,
Your home, your being.
When I hear the call of a morning bird
It’s your voice hitting my ears.
When I press my hand into moss,
It is your embrace I receive.
When I breathe crisp air
You fill my lungs.
I was born of the forest nymphs,
You, the matriarch of the line.
Our souls composed of wind
Our hair of the ebbing grasses
Our blood the babble of winding creeks.
When you speak of the wilderness
You speak of ourselves.
So tell me again about the birds.
Sylvia Belcher is a writer and a member of the MRU Write Club 2024-2025.
