POEM - Scrubbing The Crows

If I could reach one of those black-as-sleep crows
That gathers in like night outside my window
I would scrub it clean with my beautiful mind
And my sickly heart –
I would face the vertigo like the great
Cliffs divers of Acapulco, tanned and bronze
Climbing over lips, and ears, nose and chin -
Just to plunge into rocky waters below.

I would scrub the shoe black off the bird,
Make her clear and clean like feathered moonlight,
Break the foggy earthen grip - the sooty flecks
That is the darkness of abandonment,
As it covers up and contaminates everything,
This coal tar pitch that engulfs everything
With thickest arms of invisibility
That turns me into something no one can see -
But still the lightness - still the lightness
Tries its level best to shine right through me.

All things abandon and are abandoned.

When no one comes to call on me,
When even my poetry dries up like
Pulled weeds and tumbles off out of reach;
When the same love that has ruined me,
Denies me three times, I will write it down
Just so I can remember this cheesecloth thing
That I carry with me, slung so low, so full –
Just so I will not be lulled by soaring heights -

I would scrub this bird to a dazzling white
And not be so fearful of the resolving bite.


M C Biegner
5/22/06