Little Bird
By Lesléa Newman
The small arrow-shaped bird nestled among the other pins in my jewelry box, is smooth, shiny, and red as the hard candy apples sold at the local cider mill that my mother never let me eat, I could break my teeth or worse grow fat, and my glamorous mother would never have that. My fashion plate mother who made me this tiny bird one summer in the Catskills when we lived in a cabin and swam in a lake and all the moms took morning art classes where they painted pins, an orange leaf, a yellow swan, a red bird, this red bird, its ruby lacquer sleek as the cherry patent leather three-inch heels my stylish mother slipped on her size six high-arched ballerina feet or the glossy scarlet polish she wore on her fingers and toes every day of her life even at the very end when she lay in a hospital bed in a hospice, all twenty nails growing brighter and brighter as she shrunk further and further into herself, the skin on her hands and feet mottled, puffy, and blue as the jeweled eye of the tiny stoplight-colored bird now perched on my palm and staring at nothing the way my dying mother, whose name Faigl means Little Bird, curled on her side and stared at nothing, not me, not my broken father slumped in his seat, sniffling and sobbing, not the tree outside her open window where a robin puffed out her red breast and sang her heart out, the nurse stepping silently as only nurses can into the room to listen, her hand landing softly on my shoulder her voice, a whisper gentle as the wind reminding me that hearing is the last to go
Lesléa Newman's 85 books for readers of all ages including I Carry My Mother and I Wish My Father (memoirs-in-verse) and October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard (novel-in-verse). She has received poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, two National Jewish Book Awards, two American Library Stonewall Honors, and the Sydney Taylor Body-of-Work Award. From 2008 - 2010, she served as the Poet Laureate of Northampton, MA.
3/6 / Meet the Artist with visiting poet-in-residence Keetje Kuipers / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 6:00 pm EST / Free
3/6 / Poetry Reading with visiting poet-in-residence Keetje Kuipers + local writer Julie Marie Wade / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7:30 pm EST / Free
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I read this poem in what feels like one long breath. It has tremendous power in the minute details we are encouraged to study, to the sweeping end with such a down to earth message. I have never really read a poem quite like this. Thank you very much.
What a story this poem tells, and it does it with much poetic language. I like the not breaking into stanzas this poem so the flow continues from line to line. It works here for what the verses are saying captures one's mind and makes the reading quite meaningful and interesting. The overall effect is good poetry.