and through an open window in
my imagination, a bird
that got in and cannot leave,
batting wings against
my walls and bookcases, uttering
piteous vowels of sound.
Frenzied, she aims at the light.
It is window glass and it knocks her out.
Seconds later she comes to life
again, still frantic for exit.
I move away quietly, closing
the door of my mind behind me
to lessen the anxiety in the room,
leaving the window wide
open. Later, after sh has
found her freedom
a winged presence remains,
and a feather on the floor.
Next month, maybe other
words will fly in and I'll let them stay
and make their nests and lay
little literary eggs
by Luci Shaw
*
About 13 years ago, Luci Shaw became part of a writers group that I started back in 1992 with Tim Anderson, Karen Cooper, Mike Mason, and Greg McKitrick. In the last while I've started a New Years tradition of bringing in assemblages of words and phrases that caught my attention while reading that year's issues of the New Yorker magazine. A couple months ago Luci brought in this new poem - she invariably has half a dozen or ten new ones every month. So now I think of those magpie poems of mine as nests filled with eggs from a lot of different birds. An index to my found poems from the New Yorker is here. I've done the ones for 2018, but not posted them yet.
