BIRDLAND JOURNAL

Celebrating Northern California Voices

A Real Thing by Kathryn Jordan

What if everything is truly alive?
Everything.
The blankets bunched around my face,
smooth paisley sheets?  My bed,
its reliable squish. The brass door handle,
the broom, my cup of tea and those fingers
that plucked two leaves and a bud,
the window frame and the sky beyond?

What if the air rushing into my chest
pulses to enter the lusty sacs of my lungs?
And the polished oak floor gladdens
at the spread of my bare foot?
   
The steering wheel in my hand,
not just a thing,  
but a real thing, atoms ushering
me down the highway, considering
the route, doing what they do,
slow and fast, as we ride out
into the unthreatening day.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kathryn Jordan received her MA in English at UCB. A music teacher and poet, her book, Riding Waves, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2018. She is the 2016 winner of the San Miguel de Allende Writers’ Conference Prize. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in The New Ohio Review, The Comstock Review, Wraparound South, Birdland, Roar, among others. She is an avid birder and loves to ramble in the East Bay Hills, translating bird song to poetry whenever possible.

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