Nests

tax
i
dermy

Nests

When I found I’d lost you—

not beside me, nor ahead,

not right nor left not

your green jacket moving

between the trees anymore—

I waited a long while

before wandering on.

                                                Glamourie

                                                Kathleen Jamie

Abandoned now and finally

for the last time, the nest

is my open cheek, a wound

maybe from the scathing

wait and weight of its chafe

of making.  Worn away and through,

every bit and bauble, every

kit of fisherman’s rope a blasphemous
green weave leafing in

and out of the way of beaks

knitting, a conductor’s baton

maybe.  Speaking of, I saw one

such wand  yesterday

local, antique, just up

the street and behind a dusty

glass case.  And I thought who was

she or he, how did it get

here to this me seeing its etched

ebony, how much air did it

pass through, silent air, noisy

air and now this air under

a bright curio light?  And too

I thought don’t we just pay to

lease this stuff, stuff like

a conductor’s wand (because

we certainly could use

a bit of direction and prompt,

a tap on the stand

a practice blow or draw

and be given our squeak

and toot before we let it take us

seriously.  The wind I mean. 

All that random sky falling into

those nests that, once

occupied, let what falls from it

slip in right on by and settle quiet

sometimes, in combat  

other times, because listen

there’s no hiding from it: cliff

exposed or tucked deep under

the Flaming Jacob or whatever

the hell it’s called.  It’s possible

to put the choicest of your mother’s

trinkets in the back of your drawer

to hoard from everyone else

but soon they’re in a booth

to let the public people consider

how they could fit them

into their lives.  And they’ll pay

to keep them for a while,

while random life passes by,

while eggs are laid and sat,

while they crack and the shell

flakes to the bottom of the grassy

twiggy ropy temporary

home.  While the sky bears

down now wet now hot

now completely gale-wild

ransacking the whole entire

home like some agent

after the funeral, pompous

and aloof, taking down a life

tag by tag the choicest bits

never seen again, while other bits,

conductor’s wands say, even

ebony with an elephant ivory inlay,

did I say? lay waiting, 

derelict homes, grandiose once,

going now imploding, oh, or who knows,

really, what wind, tell me, what
bird really knows or even truly cares?