Two Poems
— Andrew Sargus Klein
I googled “anthology of bird poems” and was unsurprised to see several titles from the get go. Birds have to be one of the more ubiquitous animals in poetry, and the fact that there are anthologies of bird poems isn’t surprising in the slightest. They are incredible creatures, fragile and airborne and free and fleeting. They create a space big enough for ‘Caged Bird’ by Maya Angelou and ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird’ by Wallace Stevens.
The reason I googled “anthology of bird poems” is because I was floored by two bird poems in the most recent issue of Glass: A Journal of Poetry. ‘The Brain Like an Orchestra That Can Play Many Tunes’ by Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick and ‘The Falling’ by Michael Schmeltzer both center birds. They do so for different reasons and effect, but the end results are equally emotive and resonant.
Hardwick’s poem reads almost like a lyric essay, episodic and prose-like, and places hair and feathers on a parallel track with self-harm and discovery.
There’s fire under my skin — A young bird
imprints on the sun, stars to orient. I used him
as a landmark. The problem with pain is that it’s
necessary as a point of reference. What was North
back then was a clustered fist.
Schemtlzer’s poem is more compact, each line and line break deliberate but not overwrought. He somehow brings birds, children, mourning, and torture into one poem and it is devastating.
I keep trying to tell you
something beautiful
about the way the birds now trill
outside my windows
but my sorrow chirps
urgent as hungry chicks.
Tell me
you hear the birds anyway.
Tell me you’ll arrive
with food
falling from your mouth.