This from the poet whose poem Live Oaks appeared a few months ago.I like the idea that some people are just meant to be poets and that's just how it is. It's sometimes nice to think life is just that simplistic and predictable. I have enjoyed her book
The Poetry Birds
Jennifer Maier
When a friend asks why I am not a novelist,
I lean back in mg chair and watch the sky,
wondering how to tell him that although
I have combed the Gulf Coast towns
of my childhood, seeking the snowy egrets
of great short fiction, it is only the poetry birds
who land on me.
And although
I have sat in the dust
of Midwest highways, setting out all the carrion
of my life, I cannot lure the great turkey vulture
that roosts in the hair of novelists and whispers
in his sleep a tale that is spellbinding, a tour de force,
and based on a true story.
The
poetry birds are another thing.
One morning I look out and see them,
a dark alphabet against the sky. Then
I anoint my arms with suet, tie cherries
in my hair, and stand, very still,
in the back yard.
Confusion
of wings and yellow feet!
They
flock down and I wear them,
a ravenous black veil,
and when they have picked me clean,
they fly off one by one,
until I am just a woman standing alone
in the backyard, and they, a line
in the gathering blue.
from Dark Alphabet 2006
