Love & Lovers, Cardinals and Mockingbirds

[Sue Littleton]

A Lover's Fable

His wings as red
as a British soldier's tunic
at the charge of the Light Brigade,
I watched him dance along the branches
of the big pecan,
taunting the mockingbird
with martial song and trill,
summer-full of himself, black cockaded head
alert for squirrel and cat--
Until that frantic afternoon I found him
dragging one wing along the ground,
feathers crumpled dusty pink.

I lifted him, his light body hot against my palm,
and carried him home with me
to a painted cage.

Time passed and his wing seemed
as strong as ever --
but I loved my redbird,
and when once or twice he sang,
I could not bear to open the cage.
The weeks passed, a lifetime to a small caged songbird.
But it was so sweet to have
this exotic creature for me alone!

Then, one day,
a mockingbird flicked past the window,
and I went to the porch and opened
the door of the painted cage.
The cardinal fluttered past me to the railing,
testing his wings,
lifting them to the leaf-tattered sunlight.
In a joyous burst of motion, he hurled himself
into the cool clean air of morning
and flew away.

Once I was like that cardinal.
I too was hurled to the ground,
left stunned and vulnerable,
lost to my element.
We were from such different worlds, you and I;
yet, when you found me, you lifted me tenderly,
took me away from remembered pain,
and put me in a cage of words.
You can no longer fly, you told me,
Your wings won't hold you.
I want you here, with me.

Until, one day,
through carelessness, or guilt. . . or indifference,
you left the cage door open
and I found my strength
and flew away.

[Lightning Rod]

I love this
odd companion to the butterfly story
well told
I love the line
'his light body hot against my palm'
very evocative

it was once my hobby
to drive mockingbirds crazy with my flute
most of them ended up
down 't tha vetrans hospittle
with their cardinal buddies
deaf from those ole 707's
turning the sky to
propylene glycol
they all talk about my flute

[Sue Littleton]

Perhaps I should share with you my "Little Book of Buzzards" -- Yes, you have inspired me. Will post one of my Buzzard poems (the one I ACTUALLY HAD PUBLISHED in TEXAS PARKS & WILDLIFE, April 1993, and they paid me! Yes, PAID ME $50 ... thank you for the flute and mockingbird/cardinal sharing Post Trauma Shock Syndrome verse, you wicked flute player.

[mnaz]

mockingbirds keep changing their tune, so timeless like that.

[Sue Littleton]

Indeed they do, the fickle creatures, but how enchanting is their song! And when they sing and throw themselves from the top of a telephone pole into the air in a somersault, singing the whole time -- Texas's State Bird, well chosen!

[joel]

Sue, this is beautiful. A cardinal spoke to me once: in Williamsburg, Virginia, my senior year of college, a cardinal moved into the holly trees outside Reves Hall where I was living...and I looked for him every day, not in the way I sometimes look for a specific species, but I looked for him because he spoke to me. He was proudish and sour in his face. He was robust in flight and didn't take shit-berries from any of the other birds. He was always on the lookout for a mate, maybe for the simple joy of friendship (or a less anthropomorphized companionship). But he was butt ugly, by pretty bird standards. He had lost every crimson and true black feather from his ostrich-buzzard head. He was nothing but beady eyes and sharp beak and peach fuzz on a sunburned head that didn't match his otherwise brilliantly painted body.

It was about then that I started shaving my head.

No feathers. No shame. No shit.

& I loved that tonsured cardinal.

[saw]

this is superb.....the comparisons you draw ( no, paint) are very effective...

[Sue Littleton]

Thank you, saw and Joel.

Joel, you started shaving your head with the example of a butt-ugly cardinal. There is a poem there. After all, I managed to escape from a depressive relationship because I released a cardinal ...

Glad you liked it, saw. Metaphor everywhere.

Sue♥♥♥

[joel]

The (my) cardinal truth is that my recessing hair had started releasing from me; the gift of the cardinal was for me to free a beauty from releasing the depressed line I'd been drawing in the sand over the head I didn't have.

And all of that was over what was above my my scalp. Love be praised for the quiet bird that teaches me to free the beauty from releasing the recession below my scalp!

And good art be thanked for the chance for reflection along the way; thanks, Sue!

[Sue Littleton]

You are very welcome, dear Joel -- and by the way, you look most dashing with that pirate hankerchief tied around your head. The cardinal gave you good advice, even though it was really your unconscious singing its tune. ♥