By Ryan Quinn Flanagan
HOUSE OF BIRDS
(for Pablo Neruda*)
In this house,
the bird walls sing, the
chirping floor, a bouncing
glance.
The mud luscious climes of a
tilted unseen.
Cavernous eyes dug out
like cupped waterfalls,
the branching mater's dance.
The dense green leering of
moss things, freedom's
sprawling skin.
That gentle giant of towering mantle:
does the child reach up out of the land
of his fathers, unknowing still
of the fire eaters that scar and maim?
Do peckish blandishments
litter the halls like forgotten toys?
In this man, a splash
of gleeful longing, the princely
rooms and their throaty
shadows.
All things destined
and careening.
*Pablo Neruda( Chilean poet, 1904-1973) had a series of bird poems. You can access a few at these links:
Click here to read a translation of Pablo Neruda’s Art of Birds
Click here to read more of Neruda’s bird poems
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
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