Proof

This entry is part 76 of 92 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Spring 2011

I pull away every now and then,
when the world’s too hot, too bright,
too bitter; too cold, too merciless

in its inconstancy. Too rough, too
callused, too grainy, too stubborn
to answer the hand that pulls

at its ends and begs it heed. See
the ease with which the robin finds
a bright green morsel to spirit

out of the woods? Above the treeline
it flies, little beak a caret marking where
some buoyancy or joy’s gone missing.

About

Via Negativa is a unique experiment in daily, poetic conversation with the living and the dead. Dave Bonta founded the site in 2003 and Luisa A. Igloria joined in 2010. Guest authors contribute as well. Dave writes daily erasure poems to discover the poetry hidden in the Diary of Samuel Pepys. Luisa has been writing and posting a poem a day since November 2010, often in response to Dave’s entries at The Morning Porch. Collections of poems first published at Via Negativa include Luisa’s The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis and Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser, and Dave’s Ice Mountain and Breakdown: Banjo Poems. Read more…

Albert B. Casuga says:

June 5, 2011 at 5:52 pm

Above the treeline/ it flies, little beak a caret marking where/ some buoyancy or joy’s gone missing.

WAITING

How long would you have gone,
or how far would you have flown
to salve your pain, to ease a burden?

Would those you leave behind know
that one day your flight could finally
be the last one, and must be kinder?

You have all the agility and the grace
of one who has known too many hurts
to plan on a escape and not return.

Fly if you must, to some distant shelter,
but it is your heart’s constancy turns
you back to one who will always wait

by an open window, leaning out to see
if by sundown you will be back, perch
on the branch at the edge of the woods,

and warble your coming home song
forgiving what needs to be forgotten
and finally fly into these fevered arms.

—Albert B. Casuga
06-05-11

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