My feet are too big
Those great shoes would look like canoes.
I’m too fat
no one would hire me.
My memory sucks
I could never share my words.
I can’t.
I’m not good enough.
I’m not.
SCREAM!
Seize your power!
Seize your words!
Scream them out!
Drown out self-doubt!
You are!
You are!
You ARE!
You are worthy.
You are worth it.
You are the only you.
You are the
only
you.
We
need
you
to embrace the you
we believe in.
We believe.
We believe
in your voice:
SCREAM!
Two days
Twice bereft
Two losses
barely found.
Possibility snatched away
leaves me
longing.
I read your words
poetic rendering
of a message you
send to the world.
I read your words
seeking for your
meaning. Seeking
without success.
I read your words
and they are only
bar bar babble.
Your words shout
they moan and cry.
I read your words
but I can’t find
your message.
I read your words,
but
I am not your
cryptographer.
I know,
that sometimes my performance faltered.
I reached down or up for notes that would not be seized.
I fumbled at times with pitch, tune, entrances, but
every time
I believed.
I believed I was selling crumbs to birds
who were going to die horrible deaths
without them.
I believed that every person
within the sound of my voice should buy
just a small bag for the ‘ungry young ones.
My voice trembled with my belief, as I gazed out at the faces,
beseeching each and every one to part with a tuppence.
.
You believed.
Stranger, how you clung to my arm,
when me met on the sidewalk, months later,
eager to tell me how you’d heard my voice
in your head weeks afterwards. How beautiful it was.
How it made you wept.
I, who knew every vocal fault,
struggled to believe
that my believing,
had been enough to reach past my inadequacy.
Thank you
for reminding me,
it’s the only thing that connects
in the end.
.
Image (c) Evan Buhler used with permission. “Feed the Birds”. Mary Poppins Shuswap Theatre 2016.
Me, being The Bird Woman November-December 2016.
I met a fan of the show yesterday and struggled once again to come to terms with the fact that our art has its own life and power. It can transcend us to speak poignant messages to receptive ears.
Reaching inside the chair
. deep in the cushions
. I am sliced by a workman’s
. lost staple pack
. sharp edges up.
. It tears my flesh,
. leaves my blood on the leather.
Sometimes, behind us
. we leave words
. meant for construction.
Sometimes,
. our leavings
. bite.
You sit,
back against the Merge sign
inviting convergence
. connection.
I see,
the next sign, No Hitchhiking.
Pick up is illegal.
I drive by.
The Poetry Retreat is Over
I am the last to leave.
The GPS battery is dead;
I don’t know where to go from here.
My daughter says
. my hair’s too long;
. it drags my formerly too round face
. down.
My daughter says
. my car’s too girlish;
. pastel seats and butterflies
. are frivolous.
My daughter says
. my voice is too strident;
. her ears are are hurt
. by their happy cadence.
To my daughter I say
. life’s too short to be
. a fuddy-duddy*
. before you’re thirty.
.
.
*fuddy-duddy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuddy-duddy
Shawn L. Bird 