Great Blue, Haiku
Here you come. I love
your swinging hips, wide as a
woman’s feathered thighs.
But landing, you shrug
your shining shoulders like an
absent-minded priest.
Could this really be you, blue
Madonna of the river?
You begin fishing,
stepping to the hunger of
your hallowed belly
stalking the rich weeds
in a trance, a prayer we
have all memorized.
But now you open your wings,
fling water like coins, careless.
Who are you? We read
the river daily, we learn
the catechism
of you, holy bird,
blue shape of the soul, a door
opening for us.
But now you rise with a shriek,
a cry from some other world
where beauty cannot
be transcribed onto our hearts
as religious text.
Where memorizing
the verse of your feeding dance
cannot feed our own
flightless desires. What’s left?
The empty altar of grass.
Published in Room of One's Own