Fever

Do birds carry feathers or do feathers
carry birds? Waves of moments

make hourly seas. Floating on winter
feathers make fans make breeze.

The bird hits the glass and the bird
shatters. It repeats. Three crows ride

on a warthog's back. It is so hot,
drifting. This thin, fogged window

marks the place between dreams.
The badger, with its striped face

wheezes down a long gravel road.

      

I came across this poem, written years ago in the grip of a fever, quite  by accident. I recycle paper once used, putting it back through the printer -- and here this was, on the backside of a new piece.

It's better than I remembered; it brings those fevered days right back to me.

I came to the computer this morning, thinking of deleting my last post -- but it has already been commented and trackbacked. How odd.

Comments

[Dave]

I think this is an excellent poem, full of arresting images and hairpin turns. The only part that tripped me up was the sentence "Floating...breeze" - it's a little awkward on my tongue.

I wish we had badgers here. I've never seen one.

[Ken]

Fever: I had a major operation two weeks before 9/11 and was home -- in a daze -- when the news of that terrible day began to come over the radio. (Isn't NPR a gift!?!?)

It was very surreal, a nightmare, a hallucination, and an illusion; as has our history been since that day. How could the events of those days be real!!! And, yet, the compassion and love shown by so many in those unbelievable hours will inspire us for years to come.

[Anne]

I arrive hoping to catch a glimpse of you hidden behind the windows of your words. More often than not, what i see is a self in reflection... where introspection becomes my parting path.

[Pearl]

Strong poem! In like the wheeling in it like birds themselves