The starlings lifted again in unison, flew past the evergreen, and I thought maybe they’d take you a message, in a way they did, because I’m writing this now, and you are reading it. - Jennifer Goldring
“Writers must write.” It’s true. As a writer, I am compelled to share my words with the world. It’s not just about others hearing my voice, but being a voice for those without one.
A few poems…
Instructions on Recording Bird Vocalization
for Aunt Laura
by Jennifer Goldring
Get out. Get outside of your house, your body, your head. Drive fast through the city to reach the grace of your uncertainty. Walk a few feet or acres or miles, whatever you need to get across or over or through your grief. Move so far and fast you don’t recognize your surroundings, your self, your lover, your friends, not even the shape of the word family in your mouth. Be still. As a tree, as a mountain, as a whisper. But breathe in that way you do after a long night’s restless sleep. That hypnagogic river of repetition where you think you hear her voice, you feel like you’re falling, and you jolt awake over and over. Listen. Soon you’ll hear the creek, the river, the wind, and how they tell you where you can find the spotted towhee, the bunting, the lark. And wait. Wait for your heartbeat to slow. Wait for your feet to grow moss and lichens. Wait for the fissure in your heart to split you through. Turn on your recording device. Let it spin as it receives the sounds of blood circulating through your body, the anger leaving your fingers, the memory of the phone call reporting her suicide. Don’t press pause. Be patient for your body to become forest and loam and forgiveness. Let one shaft of sun hit your left eye. Feel the warmth on your face. Remember the time the two of you road-tripped to Flagstaff signing. Free as birds. And if you see something flying, it’s too late. You’ve already missed it. Stop the recording.
** 2023 Dogwood Poetry Prize — Winner
When all else failed
by Jennifer Goldring
I wanted to be avian, to need to fly in order to eat.
I wanted to swoop down, dip the lake and rise;
talons full of fish. Slippery with life and slippery
with death. I’d love the first thing I grasped
I’d land and pin the catch with claws
and rip at the soft belly. Push the indent
of the flailing fish. Now gutted. Liner red
entrails, grey stone of want, yellow bile leaking
and the beautiful cornflower look of the gills.
I’d peck those delicately. Wash of lust
on my beak and sated or perhaps just satisfied
I’d lift again to the sky with a screech,
with the pumping of wings and heart in rhythm,
with an awareness of even the most subtle wind.
Published by Architrave Press & Tar River Poetry
Walking Along Euclid in Early Spring
by Jennifer Goldring
Tonight, the moon sits in the sky orange
and sliced like cantaloupe.
A woman stands on tiptoe head tilted up,
her tongue tip on her lip, arms open
to that mysterious fruit in the sky.
She is trying to take a bite and though
she knows it is beyond her reach she will
always salivate and ache for this juicy moon.
The soft glow draws the gnat and lace-wing
from the grass. The small gray bats dart above
the blooming dogwoods and feast.