My Life Is a Poem, an Allegory

My Life Is a Poem, an Allegory
Prose poem, July 2011

Perfect black tiny feather lost to the vacuum cleaner, but I decide not to mourn, so when I leave the house, a large black feather is in the grass. 

Front of Feather

The urban shaman, now living ignorantly in the country, has to ask (on Twitter), “What kind of bird does this feather belong to?” I post a picture and a description. The feather is black, but not deeply so, and has no blue. Maybe is a bit brownish.  

Back of Feather

Back of Feather

Responses come. I am told different birds. I am asking the bird’s type, instead of sinking into the lesson it has offered me. I know the lesson but do not live in it. 

Instead, someone tweets me the URL of a science site that would take me an hour to decipher, because I am not good at understanding the site’s approach. I plan to explore it later. And I feel loved by the sender; that much I do well. Which I applaud, because often I reject love. And I should applaud, because I tend only to note my spiritual fall-downs, not my spiritual staying steady. 

I’m tweeted that I should raise feather to the sun because blue might appear. It doesn’t, and I am still ignoring the lesson by checking for hidden blues.   

My life is a poem, an allegory. I learn that the big black feather I found may be crow, illegal to own. Guess I’ll toss it back, into the green, then expect the bigger gift from the Tree of Life.  

. . . I gave the feather back to the Tree of Life, but kept Crow’s lesson to me: Grab the moment instead of the memento (momento); grab the now’s gorgeous detailed pleasures and connectivity, because they will outweigh any poems, books, feathers, or memories that result. 

But still I write this story to you, and trust that I am not incorrigible. My life is a poem, an allegory thrust upon me, a mischief by benevolent Chaos Gods, a bardic alchemy, a myth I try to decipher and try to live fully. I hope and know I am God’s beloved recalcitrant brat. 

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Bardic alchemy is a term from another of my poems, as well as the title of my spoken word album. More on both here. However, I am using the term a bit differently here.

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7 Responses to My Life Is a Poem, an Allegory

  1. mike says:

    crow speaks, you tell me?
    so what does it say?
    …silence…

    .-_-.

    • francesca says:

      A Poem For Mike, Because I Enjoy His Brain

      Liking quiet,
      I want to agree with your idea that
      crows’ message is to be silent.
      But the crows outside my window are loud.
      Yet, under all observable phenomena,
      every being teaches silence,
      even if it is by talking too much.
      Even if it is by demonstrating the joyous silence of a shout.

  2. ellen says:

    …And, of course, to not overanalyze the gift, the experience, etc…. just “simply BE with it” lol! Sounds like something I have heard come out of YOUR mouth, Francesca! 🙂

    P.S. what exactly IS the definition of allegory? I must have skipped that day in Lit class. thanks 🙂 xoxo ellen

  3. ellen says:

    The message I got from the whole thing is equivilent to, “when God closes a door, a window opens.” …To have faith and trust that if you can gracefully allow one beautiful thing to exit your life, another will enter… 🙂

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