Birds That Abide No Matter
By Claude Wilkinson
Thank heaven, at least,
for the dreaming meadowlark
who wasn’t told not to eat
anything after midnight,
who didn’t go sleepless till dawn
fearing his hazel wings
being anointed with gel
for an ultrasound, nor the route
of a scope snaked down
the pure shibboleth in his throat,
who’s not burdened for those
already with bad diagnoses,
but who rests among laurels
of proverbs and psalms,
expectant of being bathed again
in another rose-colored show
of providence when it comes,
how it comes, if it comes.
Claude Wilkinson is a painter, critic, essayist, and teacher. His poetry collections include Reading the Earth (1998, winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award), Joy in the Morning(2004, nominated for an American Book Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and a Pulitzer Prize), Marvelous Light (2018), and World Without End (2020, nominated for the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award). He is now at work on a new poetry collection.
