Cardinals
by Cheryl A. Rice
Joseph Campbell said (so many things, but this one time)
that we haven’t really lost our dead, that recollections
of times together are intimations of immortality,
words so small to say what circles of light
swirled around that amazing brain.
“Religion,” “God,” “Eternity” all simple mirrors
to see ourselves in, deflect the sun of our souls,
to see each other, together, as one Bliss.
Cardinals keep me company this week,
make their home in the bush outside the kitchen window.
Theirs is the only bird song I know, repetition of longing,
as if they spend their short days searching for one another
in the wilderness of my yard, bare ground when sun
can’t reach, thick-waisted trees whose trunks support the house.
Their lips don’t move, eyes blind to our bigger brains,
but we project, see grandmothers, brothers, friends
in scarlet feathers, adorable flames flitting from
bush to branch, calling, as I call silently, from the
soapy sink, tears dissolving suds,
hands washing dishes, filling them back up,
bringing them back for more of the same.
~
Long Islander by birth, Cheryl A. Rice has lived in New York’s Hudson Valley for over forty years. Her work has been appeared in Chronogram, Home Planet News, Florida Review, Misfit Magazine, Trailer Park Quarterly, Ragged Lion Journal, and Long Island Quarterly, among others. She earned a BS at SUNY New Paltz, and half an MA at the University at Albany.
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