FEATHER DROPPING DEFIANCE

 

TINIEST BABY FINCH FEATHER DROPPING

 

Shining with defiance, feather-perfect,

it floats onto my notebook from the Bloodgood,

specimen tree shielding me from the hanging sun

mis-colored by fires from our valley wind-swept

along the entire West Coast. Fire season

 

is a road trip that only begins again

re-burning hotter, non-stop. When was it

101, winding us above the Lighthouse

with our children navigating our way

to the Sea Lion caves? This feather,

 

gold-tipped half the size of my fingernail,

beside the other book, Michael Harper's

African American Poetry, re-opens tiny

wonders. Time-sharpened by another

thousand or so days, wit-wicked be-

 

wildered, watching John Lewis

say, Good Trouble in a movie called

Good Trouble about John Lewis.

He crossed that Pettus Bridge.

All these names, these poets building

 

this time-crossing bridge crossing

time with words, good blood words,

rooted trees, hundreds of years, Harpers

early and late, deep-rooted, these-what

half-breaths, songlines lung-streaming

 

empty only to re-fill what went up

in flames on my mountain, home-

mountain. Psalm-praising, psalm-

cursing, frank as Moses talking God-

talk, God-loving, rewarding, awarding.

 

Jim Bodeen

14-27 September 2020