When the Night Is Near as a Bird by Doris Ferleger

When the Night Is Near as a Bird 

whose nest has toppled,

and the bird seeks out the cotton 

of your shirt to curl into— such a risk 

the bird takes to love a human, 

humans being such scared

thus hurtful creatures

who the sky forgives 

by offering up its blueness

and the bird forgives 

by flying and folding its wings 

at your feeder, and by its beak 

that pecks at the thistle in your feeder.

When the night is near as a bird,

the unforgivable is forgiven.

Doris Ferleger, award-winning poet and author of Big Silences in a Year of Rain, As the Moon Has Breath, When You Become Snow, and Leavened, holds an MFA in Poetry and a Ph.D. in psychology and maintains a mindfulness-based therapy practice. Her work has been published widely in journals and anthologies including Delmarva Review, Poet Lore, The New Guard, and the L.A. Review. Aliki Barnestone writes: Ferleger’s memorable poems keep singing with their insistent beauty.

17 January 2022