A Bird’s Nest in Zion, 30 March 2019

Why not pretend, this time, I was there? Why not
Pretend that I’m here now, remembering there
And then, and writing this? Wouldn’t it be, for once,
Romantic? I was asking this, rhetorically, of my old friend,
The poet Brian Russell. We were sitting in my backyard in Zion
One fine morning in early spring when the ornamentals
Still had blossoms, watching a robin at work on a nest,
Probably a decoy nest, as robins tend to build those,
Having been selected by squirrels for deceptions.
Brian was complaining again about the habits
Of other poets, how predictably they write
About what they see, say a bird building a nest
In their backyard, how he wouldn’t object
To the autobiography, but god, if you’re going
To tell the truth, at least make it interesting.
I tried pointing out to him that autobiography
Was not my intention, that the truth was hardly worth
Mentioning, but he wasn’t paying attention. I tried
To convince him that autobiography would be
Impossible in this instance, as this was not my backyard
Any more, and I hadn’t seen a robin build a nest here
In years, and we weren’t in Zion together, he and I,
We weren’t there at all, had never been friends,
And, in truth, I had never met him. But Brian, being
Brian, wasn’t at all present and still wasn’t listening.
Look, I said. Forget the bird’s nest. It’s like this.
Back when the world was really the world, before
We knew it was just a minuscule blue marble in the dark,
When mountains were eternal and the ocean was
An unfathomable, all-swallowing, boundless abyss,
When the skies were heaven, untouchable, and all
The stars were shining for the sake of our fate and delight,
I started this damned poem with something simple,
One of the smaller elements of stories and origins,
Just a woman, a man, and a newborn. Presto! A nest,
A single atom of nuclear family. Over the years, I kept
Composing. The infant grew into a persona, a child.
The man did man stuff, like going for broke, falling,
Breaking, and lying. The woman did woman stuff, like longing
For a better life, a new world, a new man, not so much
Mothering. They broke up. The child continued growing up.
The man did more man stuff, like trying to kill himself.
The woman did more woman stuff, like trying to find herself.
They moved around from nest to nest, together and then
Separately. Some of those nests were decoys. This poem,
Meanwhile, got bigger and more tangled, until It threatened
To drag down the whole tree. You see? But Brian
Wasn’t there, and Brian didn’t see. If you go to Zion,
In spring, people say, be sure to look for the weird,
Giant nest of thousands and thousands of blossoming twigs
Weighing down one obscure backyard mulberry tree.