October 21, 2019

• blue

  

   

  dawn comes and i wonder-- shall i don,
  or remove, my mask? bending to the sun,
  bright feathers catch the wind.

  i never made it to the parade of the dead talking
  in half syllables like static wingbeats
  broken in mid-flight. yesterday the world looked frayed,

  mist hanging in rags and leaves littering the ground,
  released from the trees' wild, uncertain arms.
  did i already say that recently?

  sometimes i jot down phrases, images,
  metaphors in case of need, and tuck
  them in my pocket to incubate like a blue egg.

  (blue is a symbol of sadness, as i recall.)
  imagine what goes on inside that egg,
  albumen coating a body about to break through

  from the center where nothing was before.
  (i seem to be wandering all over this page, and
  if i had a purpose in the first line, it is gone now

  like a flock of starlings vanishing into low clouds
  as one amorphous being.) does it hurt
  when a feather breaks the skin to grow into a wing?

  the wingspan of the color blue

  thrashes against a tree and tumbles down
  like a dead weight.

  that's why i keep my old rusty wheelbarrow
  handy--to catch the heaviness that falls
  like a blue egg with a tragedy inside.

  because everything i own is in that egg
  and the purpose of this poem
  was to say

  i love you

  • 5:38 am
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