The birds in my heart...

The birds in my heart
want to live 
in an old growth forest
where stillness and sound
from the sky to the ground
are wedded and wound

The birds in my heart
want to live
in an unfenced prairie
where seed mixed with sun
by the rains are undone
and the west can’t be won

The birds in my heart
want to live 
by a spring-fed river
where the silt-polished stone
and the sycamore throne
welcome child and crone

The birds in my heart
want to live

-cakth started 9/7/2021, finished 6/22/2022

This poem is my response to a daily poetry website's prompt for September 7th, 2021 (my 50th birthday) — "the birds in my heart".  And I was so hopeful to finish it that evening. The first stanza came very quickly. Probably because of my father's love for Johnson Woods, an old growth forest close to my hometown where he enjoyed going for walks well into his dementia. 

The second stanza fought me. Through several iterations. It was finally finished last night, summer solstice. West is the home of sunsets and you need something prairie-like (or a large body of water, or some higher vantage point; an open sky in any case) to have them fill the horizon to its fullest glory. 

                                                                                     USFWSmidwest, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The final stanza was begun last night and flitted towards and away from me as I fell asleep and then throughout today (see what I did there? Flitted, like a bird. In fact, perhaps I can think of the entire 9 1/2 months as a bird flittering in and out of my sight, much less my reach). Anyway ... I had to look up what trees most commonly grow beside running water, and in the process learned the word riparian, meaning land bordering rivers/streams (ponds/lakes get a different word). Also, I was thinking of using "sycamore bones" and googled it and found a Folk/Americana band out of Western North Carolina with that name. They're lovely, and if you want you can check them out here. Sadly it appears they have stopped playing out (last show on their website is from 9/2021. Hope they get back out there!). And another fun find is Wicked Sycamore, a trio of women from Baltimore playing folk/roots/bluegrass. And they are out there gigging. Also, google some photos of sycamore roots. Swoon!

https://tree-pictures.com/sycamore-tree-nice.jpg