A BIRD WITHOUT WINGS

A Bird without Wings


Spring is dry this
year in our forest –
a bird has a broken
wing and cannot fly –

You have walked beside
me within this forest, on
a scanty path – it leads
to a brook – while a tiny
bird will hobble on its
way down to a brook
but not stand tall or wash
it’s wings – spread them
wide to dry.

Stones have been tossed
my way, so we keep
our distance on this
path where dust flies
upward, covering shoes -
covering a bird’s wing.

A broken heart – a
broken limb – similar with
mending, brings together
security to each – for when
a heart breaks, it no longer
wants to fly.

If a small bird – still touched
beak to beak with it’s
mother bird, could she too
fix a baby bird – mend a
tiny wing?

This spring the ground
is dry, no water flowing
over its’ bank, no flood,
so a broken wing is covered
in dust as we lift our feet
take slow steps - kick sand. . .
dry – lip of our lips remain
as if lips were sand at a
brooks edge –
our lips have no spring.

I have no skill to mend a
bird’s wind, who once flew
now wallows on dry hollow
ground - hope is gone.

Remember, you gathered
stones for me – emptied
edges of a brook took water
from a stream – dried soil of
spring -

Each stone came to fly away
with a whisper, from your
lips – a stone to build a home. . .
we tossed stones higher,
further – into deeper water.

Each stone we hold is unlike
the other - yet means our
future, as we touch lips – as
we watch a single stone splash
softly into still water.
We built a wall at a paths
end - one you will never climb –

You are simply a bird
without wings -

Nancy Duci Denofio
all rights reserved
c - 2011