Four Calling Birds
1 The renditions of reminiscence vary to the degree That the mind does not mind its own migratory encasement In wan December grey. Thoughtful birds succeed effortlessly When all days require faithful acts of constant discernment. The leftover robin, though, plays off your own reality All along, all the time letting you think up a good canard Of collusion: the scene we see, its folksome frivolity, Albeit withal, is only a plastic-coated Christmas card. 2 The trees wink in their crotches The last of the horizon’s pink, Diffusing sunsets in the fantails Of blackbirds roosting there. Their hard, rusted songs Both gather up and dispel The gloomy phantasms of What never got done today, Would never get done anyway While the heavy world sleeps Under the bittersweet duress Of diurnal abridgement. Daylight’s foreshortened hours Allow buildings to stretch Their shadows across the city, Feathers brushing at tombstones. This is no time to beckon with Carols. Only a dirge fits the bill: Semblance of turned faces; Similitude of wrenched hearts; These, the qualities of winter, Are taking wing as we wait for dusk. 3 St. John’s wings glowed immortal St. Luke doctored his to death St. Matthew taxed his by the word St. Mark carried his all the way to Rome But you have got to hand it to them— As writers, they sacrificed everything for Their work, letting God take Their holiest ideas to flesh them out. 4 Winter was on the way and my apartment was insulated against The seasons. The bed was too hot for sleep, so looking up, I formed Words on the ceiling, a know-nothing nomenclature of song: What are cradled creases? Are they created to carry creased cradles? It’s all there, meaning, in the cave scene which civilized man’s love. Not long after midnight, a paper-white pigeon perched on the fire-escape, And began to sing a chill stream of grief through my window, Challenging a stormy city of syllables with its quieter nonsense, My tangle of lonely noise with its soft collision of light and sound. I sought truth, though, stopping only long enough to catch up again: A cradled crease in this baby’s face Could be love’s way of making sense While a creased cradle in the ground Could be old death’s final silence… And between love and silence, the song itself seems light enough to bear. But listen to the darkness here. It’s an echo swallowing itself up; A broadcast of coins revolving in on their own orbits across A sanctuary floor; the night’s last bells wobbling the twelfth chime With the dull richness of sadness; a pigeon calling out a moment later.
--Joseph O'Brien
Joseph O'Brien lives on a rural homestead near Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, with his wife Cecilia and their seven children. He is a freelance writer and hosts the online radio program Cover to Cover for Catholic Radio International.
