A Common Bird

Artist: Ben Houstie, Wood Duck 1996

A common bird
Seen for the first time
Heard for the first time
Seems anything but common
As we hurry its smouldering image
Sealed in the thin paper
Of an undisciplined mind
Back to our study

Often urged by need
I compare its image
To flat pictures
In a favorite book
Thumbed through
A thousand times before

So wanting to exist
So needing to be found
That image
Would even change
Its essence, its truth
Just to match
One photo in the book
And to live in that
And then
Be lost to that

As the bird flew
And I walked
Beyond our greeting
It was too late
To know that bird

Just as an image
For I saw it
And I felt it
Both of us open

In that instant

A Gift to the World

Infant arriving
Brings a gift
To the world
The bright color
Of new paint
Preciously sealed
Perfectly conceived
To bless and to heal

Under the lights
Of joy and love
The seal can soften
And the lid
Will fall away
Revealing its color
To all of our senses
A gift to the world

How long we sit
Before our blank page
Is always up to us
But only lasts
As long as we doubt
The purity of our color
Or the beauty
Of an intuitive
Brush stroke