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Bird Canticle Let there be multitudes of birds in the backpacks and tents under our bed. Let them fan the small campfire of our sleep. Let Carolina wrens nest in the empty guitar cases in the guest room closet. Let them teach all hollow bodies to sing. Let there be brown thrashers in our pots and kitchen cabinets stirring stories of hunger into squash soup. Let there be grackles rising from the backs of dogs in every field. Let there be yellow warblers in the subway tunnels where dark and light chase each other from window to rail to opening door. Let briefcases turn inside out and become vesper sparrows. Let there be finches gathering in the mouths of presidents, in the veins of generals. Let them chirp in the ears of our enemies. Finally, let there be barred owls in my grandchild’s first breath, and in my last. Let them hunt me as dusk consumes light and birds eat the eyes of the dead. Let them drop seeds of next year’s crops into the furrows of our famine. Let the birds, let the multitudes, beat their wings to the national anthem of each river and every star. Let there be scarlet tanagers in my hair, hatching the eggs of my dreams. Laura Newton teaches Business Communication in the College of Business at Florida State University. She is co-editor of a collection of essays, Between Two Rivers: Stories from the Red Hills to the Gulf, and of a collection of poems, My Last Door, by the late Wendy Bishop. Her poems have appeared most recently in Snake Nation Review, the Green Mountains Review, The Portland Review, and the Naugatuck River Review. |
