“words set free from the prosaic prisons of social reality”
                                 - Philip Lamantia

One of the unnumbered Cards of the deck, Aviary
Is also one of the most horrifying.

Of the Bird cards, Aviary most signals
Capture, conquest, control….

Beware the colonial mind
Pinioned to clouds of flesh

And here’s where it kicks in,
Searching for

Ah, the birder’s card
In which is gathered

Puffins come to hear tales of the desert princess,

Gathering quickly & the wren
Whose song travels through the ferns,
Lapis buntings, magpie, juncos with tails
That scissor time, oystercatchers of both worlds,
laughing Raven weeping Crow.

Cage that flashes in and out of view,
Like atoms, the sun, comes and goes
In a shiver of moonlight, a sliver of silver
And gold.

Is it all not divine Play
after all?    

avian zipper tangled conquistador hair
the turquoise tether of concept
drowning us in tepid gravities of hope & fear
undo the knots of loneliness & fly free