Thom Moon Bird - Three Poems

Processing Grief

Gather in a circle old as loss
Bring plates of food to assuage emptiness
If musicians string harmonies together
so one becomes all /each melts
into something larger.
Meet that part of the other in the faces
of those who love enough to share
their physical presence
(Those who left early cannot experience this
except as photographs of affection
tears of absence. )
Let us not lie as to the permanence
once we leave this body
there is no coming back.
Link to those who love
so more can grow
beyond the need for neediness.
When alone, on islands of silence
feed the birds within.
When with others, add to their chirruping.
Both sound and silence affirm all of us.
You hear the song of life? You sing its chorus!



Amateur Ornithology

Once a year, Elementary East Side Schools
are treated to an environmental day on Lady Bird Lake-
to learn habitat and to respect their local ecology.
So it was that Captain Bill Oliver commissioned this poet
to improvise, Audubon style, an amateur ornithology
on a barge carrying these precious young students
around the tree-lined shores of Lady Bird Lake.
They saw female turtles, hawks, egrets, turkey vultures;
they saw the pollution left by careless transients;
they saw the skeleton of Holly Power Plant
and that Dam that regulates ebb and flow to maintain water levels.
They shared binoculars to better see the living.
They noted how birds fled when we came near.
They saw the water quality and asked pertinent questions,
and this is where the journey became discovery
for they spotted more and knew more than their poet guide.
They cared enough to use their vigilant eyes,
they questioned and answered and grew wise
to the struggles both turtles and birds have these days to survive.
When each boat returned, we had all learned a lesson elementary
that we are all amateurs at local ornithology!

For Bill Oliver and the Students of Sanchez Elementary



Between Dreaming

i am between dreams at the moment
one the oldest land (older than cities and
this new on the edge of cracking
in the olde dream, i am young and growing
all around me is wonder and learning
tall trees and elder wisdom
endless initiations. In the new dream
everything is fast and faster
speed is accelerant in a world on fire.
Oil spills and currencies decline and fall
Empires become bombing targets
lateral elliptical warfare/all
i know is old as example. I seek
contemporary living poets and poetry
is what they speak when they dream out loud.
I hear you when i listen/what you say
when you share your deepest meaning
It does not have to rhyme (poetry is freedom!)
We are all between different dreams
and the difference is ...
YOUR VERSION? (please..)



THOM MOON BIRD is an improvising troubadour incarnated in a contemporary media whirl. He hosts THE HIDEOUT, EXPRESSIONS, VINNYS ITALIAN CAFE and CAFE CAFFEINE in Austin, TX. He has 200 books for sale, many CDs, and is available now for paid poetic play.