Featured art by Brooke Shaden. Click title image to visit her studio.

 

 

Listen to Live Reading

 

 

 

Listen to Suggested Audio

 

The Beatles “Blackbird (Instrumental)”

 

 

 

 

Riddle me this
A keepsake kiss to remember you by when I’m gone
Should I die, then I won’t be gone long
For I know now of where I belong
Having heard the blackbird in full song

 

It was snagged on a bough in the here and the now
Then appeared to have since fled the scene
It was everywhere about me, yet unseen
Thus, profoundly I proceeded kneeling in the quilted leaves
Gazed up at the wilting trees and still they painted evergreen
The same portrait that hung in pride of place within forever dreams
While wide awake, my eyes relayed the hideaway a child once claimed
A secret place where fireflies traced the outline of two highs embraced
This tidal wave wed bridle reins of idle days and cycle lanes
Of pirate raids and tire chain smiles
That pulled taut thoughts that sprawled for miles

 

Honest to a fault
No mortal fraught or taught denial
Two bottle rockets caught between their altered course awhile
And when the night became of day
We huddled in our haven safe
Within the hollow of the oak
The swallow and the blackbird woke
Had been growing unbeknownst
Soon had to be going to some place unknown
The only home they’d known was here
A vicious gust had blown them clear
The wind pinned back their only hope
To snatch and catch a single tear
To carry forth, a souvenir
Of that remorsed to disappear

 

Riddle me this
A keepsake kiss to mend your injured wing dear
Returned to hear the blackbird sing
To learn the secret of its wing
To turn my eye towards the skies
As high above the quartz
It flies
Dwarfing space
Relacing time
The swallow and the blackbird climb

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Charles Stevens

 

Keeper of The Crimson Quill

 

 

 

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