jay-friend

you are a jay-friend.

welcome.

I heard you in the heather,

your frail song feathering into me --

no, not frail,

something tender-like, --

from before time, I do believe,

not as blue as the ones I know,

but I know you.

there's a gray on you,

the same as the one on megan's cat.

coal and ash in the dusk.

same collar and tail as the blue,

but no crown on your head.

it's the song that makes me know you,

before the gray or the blue.

it gets between my shoulder blades

and rattles there,

a hum lifting me, sending me --

who knows where?

you know where.

you came from there.

robbie calls it an ache;

I tried the word "helpless" --

neither one fits; 

it fits in neither one.

a limpness in the limbs, maybe.

this is a fierce kind of poem.

you know what it's like to be free.

christ knows what it's like to be me.