Two poems and some images including N.C. Wyeth

THE STONE BIRDS

—D.R. Wagner

The stone birds shattered
On the tiles just below the garden
Arch. Broken heads, bodies in
Pieces, more still than death is
Able to make us understand. There

Was no blood. It was not a great
Tragedy, just an unwinding, a slow
Unwinding of late morning
As we returned from the hill near
The edge of the sea, from watching the
Morning slide its fingers into the cove
Through the woods. You said the sun looked
As words might have looked had
There been sound beyond the soft
Ticking of the waves into the coolness.

No, it was just the fact they were
Broken. The end of a sentence or
The beginning of a lesson we hadn’t
Contracted to understand.

“Raccoons,” the gardener said, “They will
Do things like this occasionally. I think
they do it just to see what it looks like,
Just to see what will happen.”

_____________________

THE DAUGHTERS OF LONGING

—D.R. Wagner

This belongs to the night.
It has those lights about it.
It has that shape we love
That curls into our own body
As we lie abed, not sleeping
But remembering how sleep
Was and what kinds of gifts
It brought to us.

We are unable to speak,
Think ourselves still asleep,

Covered in the cream of darkness
That pulls on our legs, urges us
To dance if only for a moment.

We stand upon the water.
This must be the part of dreaming.
But we find we are water, we
Move through one another,
Scooped into an iridescense

That we can barely remember,
“Mommy, I was glowing. Am
I still glowing? I think I am.”

There is Saturday everywhere.
The morning leaks through the blinds,
Slides across the room and finds
Our eyes. “Yes, you are still
Glowing.” Right now, it’s the sun
On your skin, the soft, tiny hairs
On the body captures light for
Its moment and fills the morning
With smiles that will stay with us.
They are the daughters of longing.

_____________________