Clumsy
Our prompt this week at over at Read Write Poem was “Spring Has Sprung” — but I decided to do a little something different this week.
I used a line from Annamari’s poem, “Farewell” http://amidweststory.blogspot.com/2009/03/farewell-2-for-readwritepoem-71.html as an epigraph. This poem was inspired partially by her line and partially by one of Barbara Fant’s poems, “Black Feathers”. (If you don’t know about Barbara Fant, she is a awesome Columbus, Ohio poet who can be heard regularly at Writing Wrongs Poetry — she recently slammed at Women of the World Poetry Slam 2009).
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the poem.
-Nicole
———————————————
Falling requires grace and I’m already clumsy.
-Annamari
I once heard a poet describe how
black feathers fall from the sky, children dripping
pieces of themselves as they attempt to fly,
climbing clumsily, but yet knowing, somehow,
that they
must
still try to fly: but I
am clumsy. I cannot fly
in a straight line, and as I squawk and scream,
trying to sail the winds and slice unclouded
azure fields with my black feathered form, I still
fly – but I’m falling faster
every day. I am still
clumsy. Lisping with a
thirty-two year-old tongue learning
how to talk again after fifteen
years of silence. Learning how to
tattoo paper gently with words
without destroying the canvas. Learning
how to string words together into beating heartbeats.
How to beat my drum. How to beat out
songs upon the skin of invisible
sonic air. I am still
clumsy –
and I always will be,
for I am a bird who learned to fly
at night using eyes burnt out
with hot spoons. I cannot see
well enough to even fall
with the same grace as my own
cast-off feathers:
so when I fall,
I tumble past goddesses
and knock the stars out of their hands
with my wings, casting their celestial jewels down
to Earth. Lakshmi hates me
for my insolence – I’ve never
apologized for falling. But I am
clumsy: falling is what I
do. And I’d rather fall, while still trying to fly
as an eighty year-old feathered wreck
of a woman,
than to never lift my wings
to the heavens
at all.
Written 4/1/09
© 2009 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
The old feathered wreck – oh, my!
Blessings,
Linda
NaPoWriMo -
THE JESTER RULES
Love this! The message at the end is important and beaifully rendered!
Falling is definitely preferable to not trying to fly. I love the idea behind this poem.
The message in this poem is very inspiring and there’s some lovely imagery in there too
I just dropped by and noticed it. There are some beautiful images here , I like a lot the idea of a tattoo on the paper or “sail the winds and slice unclouded”.
and i thank you for using the line from the Farewell poem
Ana