Blog - Wednesday Poems

I've been feeling sorry for my poems lately, stuck as they are between the covers of the books they live in.  I'm thinking it might be fun to bring them out into the open.  So I am starting a Wednesday Poems blog, which I will also post on my Instagram and Facebook pages.

Since I recently resumed a tai chi practice, I thought I'd start with a poem from the Tai Chi Variations sequence in my book Suddenly, So Much (Exile Editions) - cover art shown here is by the wonderful artist Gabriela Campos.  Here's this week's poem:

Grasp the Sparrow's Tail

You want to fly with your feet
anchored to the ground, like

bamboo in the wind

where sparrows congregate,
impatient,
they do not wait
long for another turn at the feeder,
are quick to flap chickadees
away from their seeds.

More like demons
than souls released from the bondage
of our bodies, these birds
flick their little tails,
insolent.

You happily snatch one
down from its ecstasy in sky

and as you pull it back to live
on this earth again,
its heart turns to a terror
your fingers cannot bear to hold.

When you let go,
your feathered hands soar.