Bird’s Eye View
Zane Paxton
I stepped outside to find a bird asleep with one eye open to blue skies. Perfectly still it lied, full prone with wings sleeked down along its own feathered chest which sat without breath upon the pavement. He was a jaybird who I’d thought I’d seen before, singing of course, only I’d ignored his lovely morning hymns. How could I miss his echo? Red stains of letting go. Placed down before me like some gift, a miracle. To force my eyes to notice life once more. And so, after a while, I took a paper sack to hold this violence and walked it back behind my home. Then I turned my eye to the soundless sky above and thought of all the ways I’d become deaf from self reliance. That now I’m only seeing by this beauty made of silence. A life that now is lifeless and bled out among the darkness. There is nothing like the day we find we’re sightless.
News About the Anthology
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We are hard at work preparing our first poetry anthology, shaped by the voices and authors published in Poems & Paraboles.
Zane! Your poem takes me to a reflective place where I sense my own numbness to the world around me, while also recognizing the moral thread your poem ushers in. Pondering the jaybirds passing—we can walk anew to the beauty of our world and never take what we are given for granted.
Thanks, Kassi.
Glad to be able to share this poem.