Article voiceover
It was the barred who broke my sleep last night wide open Lobbing a boulder-sized chill toward my lower back The place I was carrying all my fear In case you are wondering why I said “broke”’ and not “pierced” It’s because though her beak is sharp her talons like blades I am not that kind of prey for this bird full of face full of undeterred gazes She’s not intimidated by me in the least She's known me too long and too well It is her voice that breaks me open every time and in the night feeds on the scurrying worms of my anxiety and all the scampering creatures of shame that toss and turn under covers in this bed despite the tenderness of my lover's sleepy touch Until they are decimated, displaced Until I am exhausted and awake With the moon shining boldly through every cowardly place That can only be discovered under stars an ultrasonic partnership with the moon The barred ramps up to her full-throated call Her lungs filling The sound building Her stature tall For three or four warnings before she bellows at full force Her dark eyes mirror the movement of clouds and all the creatures who make their nesting homes in the night cycling to the climax of her loud proclamation That reverberates in the newness of cold across the seed pods of early autumn ground It booms It punches never screeching It lands as a gavel for what’s real Calling us decidedly to the attention of ourselves to the loneliness of this round aching world This steady crescendo This deep filling of lungs is my first clue I’m in for it especially when my own defenses betray me with the weary smile of "she’s back" with a stab in my hip that says you’ll limp around tomorrow on the tenderness of this this new proclamation of the night The one that says You’re gonna have to die again and again and again Until your life is no longer a web of hiding places until you can stand looking up at the moon and not defend Not lie Not run away Until with resounding tenderness You have the courage to love The unlovable veil of this perfect world The unlovable coward of yourself Until the truth of you leaks out from every pore of your skin flooding the ground, filling the full cups of the air with a life that is worthy of you with a courage of absolute presence And then when the skin of you is delicate as the magenta night flower whose fragrance lulls even the owls to sleep The raw new day will shine its orange light on your face and you'll emerge sleepy and sore and beautiful and true finally unafraid of yourself