The eye of the blackbird
The eye of the clinician
Penetrating
II
The flurry and calls of the redwing flock
The men assemble and disperse
around the door of the clinic
Watching
III
My hand upon the knob
One step into your world
My life changes
IV
The room is still
Mother...Daughter
Sitting...Still
Side by side...Face the door
Heads do not move
Only the eyes follow
Time stops
Thick and still
The watching is palpable
Words ripple across the surface of meaning
The injury so minor
The wounds so deep
The forearm swelling
Cutting scars so newly healed
Your faces are masks
What piano lesson were you learning to make you hurt this way?
V
Blackbird perched on a wire...
What goes on within?
The war of two generations ago took part of you
and gave you back memories
Stories yet untold
Too raw for the general public, your family, your friends
Your reflexes honed to kill
Still lie beneath the surface
We do not know how to heal your wounds.
VI
For so long the voices have ripped my soul
Now I am soothed, hearing only the voice of God.
Why, Lord, Why?
“Grace, some people are just like that.”
VII
The blackbird returns in spring.
But you have come North at Christmas to see your mother.
She does not know you.
Says she will not see you.
Will not open the door to you, child of a forced encounter ... so many years ago.
She is Mother to you.
You are your father to her.
VIII
The nurses’ hearts are broken
The child was their child
The mother was theirs as well
The death struck all the hearts with a piercing pain
The fight was long
The fight was hard
The fight was filled with love and suffering
The fight was shared deeply, as rivers run to the sea
All the hearts became one.
IX
You drink
You fight
You drink
You fight
You laugh
You cry
You drink
You smoke
You fight and fight and fight
You are known to all the emergency rooms
You are known to all the psych units
You are known to all the shelters
When are you loved?
X
White and brown, shades of blue and gray...
The colors of winter landscape now with faint blush of red twigtip
Flash of red on black wing
Spring pulses
I check your pulses
Taking off heavy boots – How can your feet be so wet?
All winter?
Holes in soles.
XI
The eye of the blackbird
The eye of the patient
Penetrate me to the core
Your leukemia is gone
but you are dying
Mold eating your face, eating your beauty
but not your soul.
Blackbird takes to the air
Wings spread wide
The son weeps.
XII
You come every week with new papers
Forms you can not read
Your key to eventual safety
You can not remember why your heart is weak
Your child is artistic and needs more tests, you say
You put your trust in me
to explain
to read
to know the world so puzzling and painful to you
XIII
My hand upon the door
Preparing to step out
My life has changed again
