WINGS: A MEMIOR
Feather Narratives (2)
Here are a few details from Wings: A Memior -- individual feather images and their narratives.
Each feather in the wings has its own story, and a specific descriptive narrative for its place in time and space.
Apothecary Chest
Bowl of Bones
Elephant Trunk
Wood, ceramic, glass, straw,
elephants big and small,
I collect them, cherish them.
A floral elephant bank for my coins.
A little red seed with a carved ivory elephant stopper,
inside more impossibly small ivory elephants.
My favorite a ball of clay with a crooked trunk,
a gift from a little boy.
Trunks up, trunks down, so many of them,
watching over me from desktop and dresser.
Old, peaceful, calm and wise,
females all I think.
At fairs and zoos I look for elephants to ride.
I stare into that great eye on the side of its head.
Mounting it from a platform,
I’m swaying grandly from side to side,
the wire bristle hairs digging into my legs.
I sit regally,
shoulders back, surveying.
Riding the world.
The bowl, my womb,
I’m stripped of all that isn’t
essential,
to the bone,
the essence.
I’m standing on the threshold,
you know the one,
Death’s Door.
There are gifts being offered here,
release,
peace,
clarity,
omniscience.
The trick,
to grab the gifts,
turn on my heels
and run.
As I make my way back the gifts fade,
shadows of the offering.
I don’t stop,
I don’t turn,
I keep going,
I endure.
For the greatest gift is the
living world,
the one in which
my husband
and children
reside.
See the chest of many drawers
where maladies replace medicinals.
Each pain of the heart compartmentalized.
Every drawer, dark and deep
must be excavated,
Turn it over, churn it over,
place it back, close it tight.
So many drawers
opened one at a time,
No Pandora, I.
Old chest, heavy chest,
so many drawers.
In the gift of a dream,
I see the waves.
They swell and rise, swell and rise,
white foam crests breaking over,
dragging under,
tumbling, tumbling out to sea.
Mother ocean claims
this chest of sorrows.
Drawers and contents gone,
only a fine salt spray remains
and the light,
the light.