• Chiastic Poetry
  • The Strange Sum of Things
  • Poems
  • Songs
  • Sea to Sea
  • Animagus Extinctio
  • Psalm 37 Menagerie
  • Butterfly Glory
  • Books
  • ABOUT
Menu

Jeff Reed

1141 Bont Lane
Walnut Creek, CA 94596
Phone Number
Wind in the Reeds Poetry

Jeff Reed

  • Chiastic Poetry
  • The Strange Sum of Things
  • Poems
  • Songs
  • Sea to Sea
  • Animagus Extinctio
  • Psalm 37 Menagerie
  • Butterfly Glory
  • Books
  • ABOUT

Swaddled

January 6, 2024 Jeff Reed

“I coo when a ladybug crosses my finger and sing her a lullaby as soft as the wood dove’s.”

I slow to a crawl among small things,

pausing between steps across the sun-slivered meadow

checking for lupine, protecting lady’s slippers.

I coo when the ladybug crosses my finger

and sing her a lullaby as soft as the wood dove’s.

I am made of statue as I inch toward the bird nest

hidden nearby in the Cork Pine branches,

straining to glimpse the hatchlings I hear.


And this I think must be You among us,

Consuming Fire restrained to a flicker,

Voice that fathered and flung constellations

flattened and swaddled into a whisper.

Even Your tenderest sigh is a gale

force wind among Lilliputians with arrows

frantically nocking and drawing and firing

into a gentleness they cannot see.


← The Pepper TreeAt a Baseball Game →

Powered by Squarespace

Subscribe

Sign up with your email address to receive new poems when they are posted.

We respect your privacy.

Thank you!