POETRY

Morning Blooms in Birdsong

a prose poem

I tried to put lipstick on a pig once, even though all of the trees told me not to bother. As much as I despise even the best of clichés, one is clearly wasting one’s time when trying to adorn a pig. Sometimes a pig is rather happy being a pig.

I’ve spent the better part of my life trying to change pigs into things they weren’t. Or trying to change frogs, as they were, into something that can dance and spin and charm. Seems to me frogs and pigs are one and the same.

If I should begin to listen to the trees I could possibly avoid a whole lot of wasted time and effort. I’m not sure how exactly it is that I hear the wisdom of trees, only that at some point as a small girl they began speaking to me.

It’s not crazy to hear words coming from the trees; what’s crazy is to not listen to them. Those trees have been growing for far longer than I and they have seen many a pig and a frog and a foolish girl.

When I was a girl, there was a muscadine tree a bit too far back in the woods from where I was supposed to be. But visit that tree, I often did. Sometimes things appear to be sweet that really are not. Muscadines will turn your tongue, so taught that tree.

There was the oak tree from which my tire swing hung. That tree taught me to sing. But, as time and decay would have it, some trees die with their song still inside of them and have to be cut down. My daddy cut it into a throne and I climbed atop that throne to sit and sing and be taller than me.

Sometimes, a tree bears a bird which bears a song. Or many birds with many songs. It’s hard to record them when they won’t take turns. Carolina wren, Pine Warbler, Northern Cardinal, red-bellied and such. They greet my morning with more enthusiasm than my heart can bear. I capture their stories with the push of a button. I add them to an identification list. Collecting the birds makes me feel free.

I drink the last of my coffee and think about the muscadines as morning blooms around me, a cacophony of birdsong and breeze.