Wednesday, April 7, 2010

I'm not very good at weekly blog assignments, but I'll try to keep up with the Tuesday Poem, because one thing I do love is community, and connecting with writers across the planet is an invigorating prospect. (Click here for a list of more participating poets.) So, here is this week's Tuesday Poem, on Wednesday:


Morning Obituary
--in memory of Margaret Hodge

And I walked outside into May blossoms
to a pair of nuthatches who for weeks
carried twigs to the red birdhouse.
A gust had shifted it, and without
thought I reached up to right it
and out startled a frantic flurry,
new wings barely aloft.

I found one under the back steps,
crawled belly-down through spider-spawn
only for it to scamper further into darkness.
Two more rested in a clay-pot,
a spent tulip grown through the drainage hole.
I tendered each feather-bundle
back to the nest.

Rummaged into brambles,
desperate to discover the last
beside the rusted bucket
and its remnants of apples.
It vanished in a weedy tangle.
I returned to my house, closed the cats inside,
sat down to write you this poem.

copyright 2010 T. Clear
originally appeared in Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women

3 comments:

  1. Lovely to read this tender poem, T. Clear - I've been hoping you might publish it here ever since your first mention of it being accepted for Calyx.

    (And thanks for picking up the Tuesday Poem baton again this week.). L, C

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  2. Claire, your comments are always so thoughtful!

    Ima, I always appreciate your comments :)

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