Late: A Songbird in November

Late:

A Songbird in November

…all the imaginings, sweet god, the many arms the mind, the

                many mindedness of the spirit of descending upon itself, making

                a fullness that seeks entrance and when entrance is found

                unable-like water driven up from below-to resist the

                opening, and so it shoots out, a blossoming of sparrows gone

                mad, making a blessing. . .

                                                                                The Sparrow’s Gate

                                                                                Brigit Pegeen Kelly

I’ve thought about it off

and on through the years, how it may have been

simply a new late spring song

bird on her tail end

of her first migration and was late

getting the news and waking cold enough

that morning for it to be quite a rough way

to start the day.  And to meet 

the end of it, flying like she was, 

from west to east and the sun

coming up, into a sudden pane

of glass.  Say I remember

how the night before, my husband driving us

home after the entire vigil we’d 

he and I waited out, the 

incomplete and exhausting urges into

comfort the extubation must’ve been

for her, until finally her hair's fanned away

from her face and spread out like a scallop

shell around her head, like she might be

waiting for the artist, who’s always late

but she’s finally patient, I mean what else

is at stake but her dying finally right 

before of us, the way

she always said she would and wanted

and we’re there simply

to clear a space on the hospital floor

and allow, while the light’s still

on her face but starting

to go south, him paint,

a faint canvas, but paint taking to it

to make of her all the whispers of forgiveness the priest

tucked under his breviary like a stuffed

bird when he left and we, ignorant sods

not ever having been this close

to death (or maybe always but never

knowing we were

within a hair) pass the time watching

her walk (metaphorically

of course) off.  Twelve days intubated.  Maybe

she’d’ve been another twelve, and twelve

beyond that with the

                                                in

                                                out

                                                in

                                                out

                                                in

                                                out

               

of the breathing tubes—I mean who’s brave enough

to say—because saying it means we

decided to kill her rather than let her

die on her own clinging

to every artificial inflation and heartbeat.

Or maybe that was the day she’d decided

anyway and all along and it all lined up

the way synchronicity lines up—even after she’s

gone or maybe even especially—because

that bird was waiting on

the cold November morning ground

after it pounded itself out

on the front of the sliding glass door.  It was

a Wednesday.  The 21st.  It was the day before

Thanksgiving.  She’d flown from herself less

than twelve hours before.  I’d watched

for her in her going though I didn’t know she’d gone

and maybe even long before I got there (does a soul

wait for that very last breath, especially

if it’s contrived?) into that bird.  Shook

and maybe it mistook the sun’s late coming

(because I remember it being a blustering

of wind, a flurry of snow, 

getting out that morning) for the absolute

time for flight.  The others have all fled.  

And then some.  And when it took

off, I watched it, purpose in its feathers, in

the bib under its chin.  Clean

through the air.  It knew every inch of it.  It knew

every note waiting for it when it stepped

and lit on the birch branch.  It started to sing

to each of us,

to nobody.  the Bird of it, how it dug into the air—late—late—

baby, we’ve come all this way,

I don’t even know your name.  Don't

watch.  Don't utter a sound.  Don't, by God,

turn away.