Perched like a verb, a female cardinal
sways on a pine bough, no snow to frame
her yet. Even though the morning is overcast,
the red tip on the paint brush of her crest shines.
I have no narrative to fit her in, and she has
none with me. We couldn’t even be heartbeats
in an epic poem, though around here,
she is more identifiable than a hero.
But now the black seeds of her eyes
are focused on the distance
to the ripest berries.
In the slow rhythm of the cold,
the pine readies its shadows
to fill the space when she flies.
Jack Stewart was educated at the University of Alabama and Emory University and was a Brittain Fellow at The Georgia Institute of Technology. His first book, No Reason, was published by the Poeima Poetry Series, and his work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Poetry, The American Literary Review, Image, Crannóg, and others.
More work by Jack Stewart
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