Devotion, by Jay Bond

Creation of the Birds, by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1957

 Devotion
​
Creation smokes slow
through the prism of dutiful care
artful hands turn    over spans of light and dark    the cosmic mind burns
 
Each shaded wing tip, brightness at breast and crest, fine fibres of nerve
A currawong, a bower bird, a black-backed gull, a hummingbird
Who will ever comprehend        how this ‘painted bunting’ could live and breathe?
All senses tuned ever more subtle    time wise time long , headlong into fate
A line flows straight
         Each day thins to a wisp, extinguishes almost, begins again. Species are fading.
She glows electric bright, calm, charged with a clear fury and unerring duty  
Draws on, draws on everything around her to make, to make up
For loss, to gain ground, get ahead of the tiny deaths, one after one
The newborn sitting hooded with tissue still                dazed, testing damp feathers
She has no time to help the fledglings to their feet   into flight
Little flocks accrue in corners then make their way away    she can’t stand to see them off
Waving in eternal murmurations    leaving and waving    leaving in waves unseen

 Jay Bond

Australian who returned in 2020 to her city of birth, Melbourne, after a few decades teaching in Asia and the United States, now refocusing on writing. Published writer of poetry: Luna and Meanjin magazines, early 1980s; more recently in Litterateur Rw magazine, Argotist Online Poetry.