Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS (Don't write about the song) (04/16/15)
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TITLE: Such is the Day for Wide Open Windows | Previous Challenge Entry
By Leigh MacKelvey
04/23/15 -
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ADD TO MY FAVORITES
You have been betrayed.
It has taken you unexpected.
The body, such as it is, suffers infidelities
of disease daily.
Disloyalties acted out on a surgical slab
in a sterile room with a cold scalpel while you
drift far away as if nothing is real except
your anesthetic void,
only to awake and find
disfigurement of figure,
fret of future.
Home then to windows locked, drapes weeping.
Paintings bleed out of their frames, slide off the walls.
Your house, a deep sigh.
Soon you will feed all day on the unkindness of it all.
Soon you will drink from your chipped life, as if were
an old tea cup on a cracked saucer.
Yet, there comes such a time when you fall in love
with Bluebirds.
Yes, the cheery ones who stitch Cinderella’s gown.
They unlock the parlor window, alight on the sill,
fling the curtain back and open wide the windows,
chirp, chirp, chirp and into your house with brooms
and a dustpan.
In perfect animation they move room to room,
tidy your mess, make your bed of sorrows
with bright blue sheets, throw over it
a coverlet daisies of composure,
and border it with dreamless sleep.
All the while they sing a song of praise.
Their love is for you. You love them back.
The betrayal, the disease, once a deadly
ball of fire begins to flicker out,
a lightbulb on its last filament.
There are only the birds.
Dozens and dozens
of bluebirds come each day
to paint new pictures for your wall.
Their brushes spill the scents
of blues, greens, purple majesties.
They swish sweet honey for your palate,
kisses of music for the ear.
All those colors swirl into landscapes.
Your favorite is of the ocean
rolling its water right to your shore.
Behind the water are mountains,
their hands raised high.
A sun sends blobs of Light across the canvas
and into your house.
Soon you remember all four seasons.
Soon you think of a kindness in each one,
gifts given in their term.
Soon you realize that there
was always such a time for bluebirds.
Tea is being served on a tray near
the wide open window.
The cups are fragile, the chips still there.
Only, you don’t notice, and when you
lift the rim of the cup to your mouth,
You can’t feel them.
The tea that fills the cup is freshly brewed.
Chips are what they are,
brokenness is what it is.
Both now part of who you are.
It comes to your mind as immediate
as a newborn’s roots for a mother’s breast,
the reason why your cups chip,
your saucers crack.
A smile, now, as you remember your infant daughter,
infant son, adults who no longer need a mother’s
breast, yet treasure their mother.
The birds flutter around you and point
their perky wings to the Bible on your tray.
Soon you lift your voice with the bluebirds and sing,
Let the one who is wise heed
these things
and ponder the loving
deeds of the Lord.*
*Psalm 107:43 NIV
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God bless~
This entry stirred my spirit. Great work.
God bless~