White Sustenance

Kat Snider Blackbird

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Year: 1994
• ISBN:
  9781612778006
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Women in Poetry
• Index: Literature

"Kat Snider Blackbird gives us all these in her intense and passionate poems. She is a woman—and Woman—in love, in lust, and deeply in life. In her work, women will see themselves on all levels of being and men will at last be allowed to penetrate the mysteries of the women they love."—Grace Butcher

THE GREAT BLUE HERON

CONFESSION

My arms are heavy with the bodies of men and babies,

pushing, pulling. My flight is jagged,

a dizziness presses from behind my eyes.

Forgive me. I know nothing of the heron.

The morning breezes touch the softest places of my body

and I have opened.

The sun smooths across my belly and breasts.

I have opened.

I have wanted spacious skies to lie down in,

the challenge of thermals, the rush of winds.

I have wanted to fly like an eagle or a nighthawk,

I have wanted to be as beautiful as these.

This morning, I walked the sandy path to the lake.

Beneath cold water, I could not breathe or see.

I splashed toward the sun and scared the fish.

At noon in my kitchen, I held sharp knives

to slice bread, chop onions, apples.

I have never really killed anything.

When the sun set,

the brilliance burned my eyes.

I did not look away.

REVELATION

The great blue heron flies straight

and never stops its rowing wings.

With its long neck stretched toward the place it is going,

it gets to that place never looking right or left.

It stands taller than all the other birds in Ohio,

steps into water with pointed toe,

careful not to give away its hunger.

Then it spears fish clean through

and swallows them whole.

CONVERSION

I want to believe in the great blue heron

the way I used to believe in Jesus,

to make its flying body the mystery,

the crucifix that moves from life to death

and back again. I want my feet to move

with the steady rhythm of heron wings,

my spine straight as its neck and legs

outstretched in flight,

my eyes focused on the same narrow aisle.

I want to be as strong.

I want to go in the morning, kill, eat,

then return to the place I came from

to sleep, to wake again.

I believe when the great blue heron flies across my path

it is the harbinger of blessing, the portent of good,

and because it happened last May

once for every wish I had,

I think I shall not perish;

I will live, abundantly.

SUPPLICATION

With bare feet I follow the path into the woods

farther than I’ve been before,

through trillium and marsh marigolds.

I wonder when I’ll get there the same moment I realize

I’m there. They are everywhere above me,

the huge balls of sticks

blurring the tops of towering beech trees,

at least fifty nests.

Then I see them, hear their pterodactyl calls.

There are at least fifty great blue herons,

hovering, shoulders hunched.

It’s spring. They are tending their young

or standing watch over what goes on below.

They seem so mysterious,

death’s underlings.

I could be breathing swamp gas,

I could become dizzy with the primordial air here.

They are attending me like evil nurses,

I am losing consciousness

and without knowing, all in slow motion,

my cheek gently leans down against

and touches the leaves first and...