PROMISES TODAY, PROMISED
I, the man I am now, walks in the woods with a welcome set on the hair I have left. Almost all the birds who know the human I am, who see the steps I send ahead first, all the time asking for entry, knowing the paths, (deer-made), knowing I was comng to seek how they would show I could be among them. So I be someone looking up, without a thought of any death, looking to see like each one of them, belonging, maybe to clouds or trees-tops, the darkness between both, where permission isn't words, where harmony chirps, nothing better, and my smile. All I gladly admit I don't know, above me dawn's welcome, tomorrow coming like a child asking those questions, ready for promises today, promised. THE CLAPPING MAN'S CLAIM I have gained the trust of a crow my past put on a branch. I have gained the trust of a bluejay waiting for a welcome. I have gained the trust of a starling being a parent this Spring. I have gained the trust of a mourning dove my crying owns. I have gained the trust of a grackle no hinged door sounds like. I have gained the trust of a chickadee singing pee & poo. I have gained the trust of a sparrow Matthew wrote about. I have gained the trust of a humming-bird found on the same twig. I have gained the trust of a woodpecker unlike any cartoon. I have gained the trust of a red-winged blackbird and her mate. I have gained the trust of a chipmunk without even one wing. No voice, no singer, is heard in among what the leaves sing, not even a beak has broken a note. A moment all alone, a glutted state, money tries to find a way back to greed. I have even gained the trust of my wife cheering for a line of lyrics she forgot was forgotten, she hums instead out on the cool deck. PAYING ATTENTION A FEE What flight may mean is what I have left to ask even though Summer has had all the answers. Wings for those who fly provide other than voices, but the needs of wind become involved for the most skilled of the ears at least one human values. I hear my footsteps are known. THE PROVISIONS OF PERFECT TIMING The pay-off... one end-of-the-week morning, a scene I seem to believe has been given as a gift making my drowsy mind chant the saying, "The early bird gets the worm." And one really did: the first of the new starlings in the unmown grass of May forgets to open its sowable beak, forgets to stalk the foodful parent, to feed itself, locating each piece of cat food but preferring the variety of seed as the steam of vanishing dew hides almost every nutritious discovery. JOY FOREST It happened there! All the days before this one when chipmunks finally returned, gave the soul in me the visits I have thanked them for some other Springs. Beauty came to what I held in just two fingers-- peanut-loving creatures willing to trust my hopes! Something the sky has decided comes down to stir the leaves trees gave up last fall, now waking. It is the wind I am thankful for telling the man in me rain may want the roots visible beside the boots I use to enter it, show the mates a human being human will not be what they fear. Bio: Chad Norman lives and writes in Truro, Nova Scotia. In 1992 he was awarded the Gwendolyn MacEwen Memorial Award For Poetry, the judges were Margaret Atwood, Barry Callaghan, and Al Purdy. His poems appear in journals, magazines, anthologies around the world. A new book, A Matter Of Inclusion is out now.
Fevers of the Mind 