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BIRD GODDESS

Because she is ancient and winged, her whole body perched and dappled, legs fading into the trunk of a tree

by Kathryn Kirkpatrick

Because she is ancient
and winged, her whole body
perched and dappled,
 legs
fading into the trunk of a tree 

who will understand her? 

She could as easily rise
toward the daunted sky
as send roots into the willing earth. 

Who will value such scope,
such ambiguity, however fertile? 

She must be woman or bird or tree.
She cannot be all three. 

Torso slim against a giant moon,
wingtips arcing the sun’s yolk, 

she is pure possibility
at that moment before
category.

Kathyrn-Kirkpatrick

Kathryn Kirkpatrick


Kathryn Kirkpatrick, poet and literary scholar, is the author of seven collections of poetry, including Our Held Animal Breath (2012), which was selected by poet Chard DeNiord for the NC Poetry Society’s Brockman-Campbell Award.

She is also the editor of two collections of essays on Irish writers, Border Crossings: Irish Women Writers and National Identities (University of Alabama Press, 2000) and, with Borbála Faragó, Animals in Irish Literature and Culture (Palgrave, 2015).

Find out more here.

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