Small Birds

From Finite. (c) 2002

Sometimes birds come inside

but superstitions are no longer remembered.

Whether a swallow, a sparrow or crow

is now a matter of mere interest, not concern.

Today a “small bird” entered this “building”.

A small bird in a building instead of inside

the more descriptive church, bar, or house

weakens communication by vague generalities.

 

Recently I read that the alphabet – the vocabulary

which is built with specifics

transmogrified, so to speak, our left neural passages.

It exercised and expanded our ability to place things

into a hierarchical order, to view this world as linear

and to allow us to form abstract thought.  In turn,

this alphabet was the source of patriarchy,

and from there sprung misogyny, then slavery,

animal domestication, environmental poison

and our validation of wars and conquest.  

If this is true than a “small bird” can only

tip us back toward some balance.

 

Yet, even love, which is considered a woman’s domain,

is specific.  Love seeks a specific lover.  Although, maybe

it just feels specific.  Seeking not a specific dress to wear,

but a perfect dress with perfect shoes.  

Not a specific moment, but the perfect moment.

We obsess and mull and mix the order of events,

omitting harsh words and misconduct

until it is all so effusively perfect.

And yes, it is a specific lover and yes, a specific affair,

but it is only the first of so many others.

Lovers are not remembered chronologically,

nor in order of impact, but in snapshots culled from the dark.

Memory fattens or impoverishes lovers, fragments them.

Though I’m sure I am talking about something less than love

somehow still stuck in the alphabet with ill-defined words.

 

We humans are closer to being images than words.

An image, as I’ve recently read,

accelerates the right neural passageways

which is necessary in the evolution of tenderness,

in our ability to see the big picture,

to develop empathy and acceptance of those different

regardless of where one does or where one could

fit on any pecking ladder.

 

So maybe by saying “small bird” instead of swallow or crow,

it muddies my message, which fucks up the poem, and maybe

I can’t say specifically what it is I want you to hear,

but if you are with me, if you are in the experience

and see the same small bird with me, maybe then

we can forget our hierarchy and rationalizations

and in forgetting we won’t fight so much to maintain our place. 

Maybe in the absence of abstractly imposed barriers

we can assent to find commonality.

 

But maybe, I dream far too much from one small bird.