BEGINNING OF THE SHIFTS
Finally, when seated, it is about firsts,
how wonder offers a blessing:
the possibility of seeing the sun
thanks to a mist being sent in
by something only the dawn
and blue- jays bring, knowing
the peanuts are set in place.
I, at times, feel the front-deck
where a new day has placed me
seemingly pull away from the home
I am again working to pay off;
it is not money the jays fly in for
beginning their shift of
coming in close, to fill beak after beak
with one, or two if it will fit,
to navigate between the many jobs
others given the gift of wings
start as well, the benefits of no hunger.
None of us for the moment unalike,
able to do what we need to do,
the only difference being
there are no songs I sing
or a flight I can manage
to escape the clock’s whispering.
The next shift comes on…
chosen, just now, by a chickadee,
in the busy beak
the future’s single seed.
ANOTHER MORNING THE HEAT HAS US
Watching
the intelligence
of a bird,
the branch
where
a decision
is made.
In the beak
a peanut
soon to be hid,
a routine belief
stored for
the humid future.
CORVID TEACHINGS
for cuzzin Val
I see
the mates
living closer
than ever,
autumn spreading
rapidly,
unlike
us
down here,
asked
to be distant
for a reason.
Few want
what you
in those
black feathers
have…
so I
stay away
from them,
the ones
without wings.
Chad Norman lives beside the high-tides of the Bay of Fundy, Truro, Nova Scotia. He has given talks and readings in Denmark, Sweden, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, America, and across Canada. His poems appear in publications around the world and have been translated into Danish, Albanian, Romanian, Turkish, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, and Polish. His collections are Selected & New Poems ( Mosaic Press), and Squall: Poems In The Voice Of Mary Shelley, is out from Guernica Editions.