Joanne Barrie Lynn

Singing Bird Woman

after Kim Newall 3/91

Warm from the artist's kiln,
color of cliffs ochered in sunset,
pitted, as if unearthed today
from ancient Sumerian ruins,
the Bird Women sing before opening their eyes.

One sings loudest. Her robust
open-throated joy calls to me
above the vigorous choir of her sisters.
At home I fit candles to her new-fired wings,
listen, in the night's deeps, to her radiant heart.

My new-found voice I raise with hers, with ages
of candled women, birthing our small lights,
midwives to each other,
bearers of flame through dark millennia,
heralds of dawn.


Copyright 1997, Joanne Barrie Lynn


Joanne Barrie Lynn is a founding member of Avalanche Poets in the Seattle area,
and is the winner of the 1996 William Stafford Award, Washington Poets Association.