Impossible Gifties 1: Poem by Sheena Blackhall

for Gift 1: Poetree — Scottish Poetry Library

Poeta est in Silva

The poet is in the woods.
Currently, she is a bird
Whose flight never ends till it drops.

It is the business of birds
To fly, they are winged creatures

The poet’s little flights of imagination
Rustle the leaves for a moment
Snap a twig or two

The bird does not stop her flight
Because it is Sunday
Or she has reached the edge of a leaf

The nodding heads of trees never
Freeze like Uccello’s hunt scene
As the poet-bird  passes through
Trailing her comet’s tail of poetry
Within a whisker of a larch

The poet is in the woods,
She is not a nine to fiver
She is not a cuckoo clock
With a wind-up spring

The air moves, and she rises.

© Sheena Blackhall 2012