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BIRD POETRY AT PAPER POETRY
Feathered
Dressed in color to brave the night
The sky breaks no promise or sound,
It receives what is lost from the ground.
Along the high ridge where the wild berries grow,
A sudden stir parts the dead leaves below.
Born of a shout or a soft, rushing sigh,
A seam opens wide in the grey of the sky.
The law of the earth is a tether of stone,
Where everything falls and remains all alone.
The heart anchors down into shadows and dust,
Yet look at the wing giving over its trust.
It floats on the hollows, the invisible tide,
With nothing but softness to shield what's inside.
Green grips the stone on the lip of the well,
And blue drowns the depth of a sea-sunken shell.
Yet color is merely the armor it wears,
To face the fierce cold that the high winter bears.
Red feathers ignite on a winter-stripped crest,
And burn like a flame in the frost of the nest.
It sings through the freeze while the branches stay…
