Monday, May 2, 2011

The Birds of Love

[Port Alberni owl - taken in somebody's back yard
I don't know who to credit for this photo (besides the owl:)]

[for Eric]
An owl
has taken up
residence
in my brain.
Sometimes I can feel her
perched
on my
left shoulder,
muttering
in my ear,
a distracting
refrain.

Owl,
harbinger
of death,
or Oracle?
She carried
 a message for me
from the spirit world,
in the days after
my mother died,
a message
I could not
decipher,
no matter
how I tried.

Owl has
returned again.
I wonder why.
And every night,
now,
I have been
dreaming
about you,
thirty-years-gone-by
love of my life
and, in my dreams,
you love me
this time
so I can
feel it.
You loved me 
then,
I am now sure,
but I was
too incomplete
a person to believe,
you too steeped
in sorrow
to endure.

When I told you
I was leaving,
you opened
the gate of
the birdcage,
released
the widowed dove,
and off she flew.
You could never know
how, all those years,
the dove of my heart
has kept on
circling,
circling,
back to you.

What does this
all mean?
Are you alive?
Or have you
entered
the spirit world
unseen,
sending back
messages
to me
in a dream?
If you are gone,
then now,
for sure, 
you know:
when I told you
I'd love you
forever,
back then,
my words
were true.
I only wish
that I could know
you knew.

There is
a blackbird
singing
in the dead of night
in my
solitary heart,
that takes me back
to that rooftop,
that time in the sun,
a time when
we were
so beautiful
and young,
and every night, now,
I am dreaming
that we have
only just
begun.

10 comments:

  1. What a cherished tribute to your MOM; so beautiful! WE don't always realize till later what they did for us~ I believe in connections, from beyond~ I hope you find comfort in your dreams!xXx

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  2. This is a tribute to a lost love, Ellie. But an owl appeared to me after my mom died, so now that it is appearing once again, I am wondering why I have been dreaming of him every night after all this time. It seems like a portent. Thanks for reading!

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  3. And what a tribute, Koko. Here, we hate owls because as you rightly put, they are a harbinger of death. They are a bad omen. I remember one night an owl's hoot threw us into panic. We chased it as if we were getting paid for it.

    Conversely, that said, how I wish your lost love read a few words or even a stanza of this. It is honest as it is poignant.

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  4. Sherry, this is a beautiful poem of remembering,yearning, love. I love these lines:

    You could never know
    how, all those years,
    the dove of my heart
    has kept on
    circling,
    circling,
    back to you.

    I wish too he could read your words and see how you still remember.

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  5. Love lost has rarely been this beautifully, articulately, paid homage. You've outdone yourself this time, Sherry.

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  6. So many beautiful lines! Haunting, wanting, loving all "one." Nothing lost. Wonderful image of the circle. I love the lines, "too steeped in sorrow to endure."

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  7. This is one of the most moving poems I've read of yours, Sherry (and so many have had me in tears). Anyone who has lived to regret the loss of the love of their life, cannot fail to empathize with these words... and the haunting presence of the birds takes your exploration of these emotions to a whole new level. Magic.

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  8. Thank you, kind readers. It comes from a deep place. Oh age is a killer, sometimes, when it comes to memories.

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  9. Love owls. See them as the night eagles. Friends to shadows, able to split darkness and bring life in shadow to light of living. But, the mesage might be unclear because of a certain uncertainty, or confusion. Just breathe, Sherry, it will get clearer. Your poem is full of wonderful imagery and some very lyrical lines. Wonderful tribute,

    Elizabeth

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  10. My wife is a huge fan of Owls - I'll show her this fine piece.

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