Vox Populi
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Robert Wrigley: A Similar While
The window-walloped chickadee that burst
from the hollow of her hands at her chest
startled her, who had in the bird’s obsidian eyes
seen herself and the trees and the sky’s
narrow shard of blue, just before
on a leap and wing-beats it did not soar
but kissed her chin, lips, nose,
and the lashes of an eye with a wing as it rose
and lit among the bare pine twigs
on its eye-shiny black twig legs.
And waited to recover all its chickadee senses,
then sing some glad chickadee sentences
that anyone would understand,
who’d been held a similar while in her hands.
Copyright 2023 Robert Wrigley
Robert Wrigley’s most recent collection of poetry is The True Account of Myself as a Bird (Penguin, 2022. His most recent collection of essays is Nemerov’s Door, published by Tupelo Press.
Chickadee (source: Tallahassee Democrat)
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Oh, that window-wallop and dizzy recovery! This my (our?) life story, again and again, in the end with possibility. Love it.
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Thanks, Clayton. It is a remarkable poem.
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I am a long, long time fan of Robert Wrigley’s deeply intelligent, generous, & sound-blessed poetry. And, once again, those qualities bloom, no, soar like a chickadee in this poem. Window-walloped! And the end-rhymes, & enjambments on a rhyme or slant-rhyme — oh my! — & the music & cadences in this poem: a delight!
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I agree, Laure-Anne. Bob is an excellent craftsman.
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As Keats himself is reported to have said at one time, ‘aw shucks.’ Thanks, Laureanne.
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How I love chickadees. They are at our feeders most of the year here in Colorado🖤
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My first memory of chickadee was when I was 12 and I had my first long gun. My grandfather actually tried to get me to shoot a chickadee! I purposely missed. Although I was pretty good shot, I’ve never been much of a hunter.
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Successful ?
Sent from my iPhone Gerald Jonas
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I so identify with this little bird’s wobbly re-engagement after a bruising run-in with reality!
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I do too, Louise!
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