Yesterday on our end-of-the-day walk through the woods we found nineteen feathers, gathered them into a bouquet, and made our way to the bench in the high open field. “Bird time,” J. said. Newly met, third date, each of us slowly gave our weight to the other as we listened to the lullaby choir of twilight. The only words we spoke: “Rufous-sided towhee.” “Bluebird.” “Peewee.” After an hour, I asked if it was dinner time and he said, “Not yet. It’s still listening time.” Dusk settled and the towhee’s voice gave way to the sonorous purr of bullfrogs; and they, in turn, to the songs of dark: a lone barred owl. Then a duet of owls. J. and I watched the moon lift from behind the tree line. You and I have been in love with the moon / rising for a long time. I whispered Bly’s poem as a way to honor what we had no words for. Then to bed in the abandoned house. As we fell into the timeless zone of sweet caresses, the choir continued. A night of tree frogs and coyotes and us.
atop this knoll what else
is there to do
but let the feathers go
Click here to read Alison Granucci on the origin of the poem.
Image by Tom Fisk on pexels.com, licensed under CC 2.0.
Alison Granucci:
After 23 years with my partner, I began reflecting back on when we first met in 2001. We connected first through the land and nature, birds being the glue of belonging. However, not long thereafter, we separated for a period of years. To write this poem, I revisited journals from that time and pulled out phrases from those entries to weave together. This is a Haibun traveling through time rather than on a physical journey; though of course that is implicit in the piece as well.
Alison Granucci is a poet and naturalist living in the Hudson Valley. In 2005, she founded Blue Flower Arts, the first literary speaker’s agency in this country to represent poets, and upon retiring in 2020 began to write poetry herself. Her work is featured or forthcoming in RHINO (2nd Place, Editor’s Prize),Tupelo Quarterly (Poetry Prize finalist), Terrain.org, About Place Journal, Plant-Human Quarterly, Subnivean (Poetry Award finalist), Connecticut River Review, EcoTheo Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Great River Review, The Dewdrop, and Humana Obscura. Her essay “Teacher Bird” was a nonfiction finalist in phoebe: a journal of literature and art. Alison is at work on her first poetry collection as well as co-editing an anthology of new bird writing with J. Drew Lanham. She is a reader for The Rumpusand serves on the board of the newly forming Hellbender Gathering of Poets for environmental writing. www.alisongranucci.com
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