Communication

I read about spirit animals on the internet.

The internet tells me that the white parrot

who flew into my car tonight, refusing exit pleas,

means either

special vigilance will be required in the days to come

or I’m about to learn new language skills.

If it’s special vigilance,

I’m supposed to be on the lookout for signs,

omens: Perhaps it’s the perfect time to go after the dreams

you once thought were out of reach.

If it’s new language skills, though,

I am supposed to change

what I say to myself,

those perilous extremes—

standing in the perfect field,

about to fall over the black cliff.

Yes, you are the mountain, sure, 

and I am the weather, ever-shifting,

but should the climate change so drastically?

Am I equipped?

Are you?

This is what I remember:

Before the alphabet,

I was walking next to the river of this valley,

we sang songs to each other, while the sun

wrote loves notes on the water.

When I opened my mouth,

a waterfall fell out, or a wolf howled

from a far away cave. When the ravens

laughed, we all laughed together.

Listening to my body,

I felt the stories in the heavy rains

touching the red dust of the deserts,

washing rocks and bones into the night.

Before the alphabet,

my voice was cerulean, and never

alone like now, cramped  

inside a language that splinters me.

Now, people only talk to other people,

but I still talk to the moon.

I use vehement phonetics, while the moon

stays eerily mute. 

Stubborn, I sit in the grass, waiting.

Sometimes nostalgia looks like idleness.

A swallow breaks the silence

and without knowing why

I put my head on the ground.