Song for an Injured Bird

Danita Dodson

 

—after a painting by Jorn Lynae Mark,

seen in an Asheville art gallery

a few months after Hurricane Helene 

 

Barefoot, I carry you into the dawn,

cupped in hands trembling with care.

In sun, you almost seem whole again—

 

except for the tilt of your twisted wing

and that haunted look in your dark eye,

as if the sky itself were caged in glass.

 

Shh. Be well, little one, in this world

burned blind, where softness is crushed

beneath the boots of cruelty and hate.

 

I will sing you into the shelter of trees,

where roots braid through healing soil,

and leaves whisper the language of light.

 

And as you blink at the morning’s blaze,

your wings tense with the ghost of flight,

I pray for all good things that try to rise.

Danita Dodson is the author of three poetry collections: Trailing the Azimuth, The Medicine Woods, and Between Gone and Everlasting. Her poems have appeared in Salvation South, Untelling, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Mildred Haun Award of Excellence. A native of Northeast Tennessee, she calls the quaint town of Sneedville her home. More at www.danitadodson.com.