To Tell One Story is to Not Tell Another, by Pat Hale

The Birdcage, by Frederick Carl Frieseke (USA) 1910

To Tell One Story is to Not Tell Another 
 
To see the blossoms pinned in a woman’s hair 
is to let the others bloom uncounted. 
To paint parrots the green and yellow 
of the flowers around them, using the same 
raw swipes of paint, is to lose the birds  
in a chaos of colour. Only the slashes  
of black tail prove the birds exist at all.  
How many birds live within the cage? 
 
To paint the woman, her exquisite spine,  
is to let the parrots drift out of true. 
The robe slipping from one naked shoulder   
will keep her within the shelter of garden. 
No passageway through the wall of flowers; 
there is no leaving the beautiful cage. 

Pat Hale

This poem was first published in the Connecticut River Review.

Pat Hale’s poetry is largely inspired by both visual art and the natural world. She is the author of the poetry collection, Seeing Them with My Eyes Closed, and the chapbook, Composition and Flight. Her work appears in many journals and anthologies, and has been awarded CALYX’s Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize, and the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize. She lives in Connecticut, where she serves on the board of directors for the Riverwood Poetry Series, Inc, a group which has brought poetry events and festivals to central Connecticut for over a dozen years.