The Bluebird Word

An Online Literary Journal for Poetry and Flash

Tag: devotion

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The Power of the Circle

6 April 2023 /

Poetry by Nancy Machlis Rechtman

The river was raging
But the herd’s only choice was to cross
So the baby moved even closer to his mother
Remaining under the others’ watchful gazes.

The storm had created a ravenous monster
Drawing the elephants away from the riverbank
On the other side
Like a Siren.

But they were powerful
And each purposeful step
Brought them closer –
Except for the baby
Exhausted by his attempts to move
As the current swirled around him
Pulling him away from the herd
And down towards the wildness of the rapids.

The herd was drained as they gratefully climbed the embankment
And only the mother and her baby were left
To fight the tentacles of the river
But just as the baby seemed to be safe and about to step onto the land
The current tightened its grip
And started to yank him away from his mother
But she wouldn’t cede her boy to the greedy waters
And she thrust her trunk under him and held on
So he wouldn’t be swept away
But the river also refused to back down
Now that it had the baby firmly in its grasp.

The other elephants turned and saw the struggle
And knew what they had to do
So they lumbered back down the embankment
And without hesitation stepped back into the ferocity of the river
And they surrounded the mother and baby with their power and strength
And love.

The mama took a step back to join the protection of the circle
Keeping the baby in the heart.
With renewed strength, together they pulled him out from the jaws of the insatiable barrage
And brought him back to the safety of the land
Where he remained in their center
And after a moment of renewal
They turned and made their way as one
Onto the next step of their journey.

Nancy Machlis Rechtman has had poetry and short stories published in Your Daily Poem, Grande Dame Literary, Fresh Words, The Bluebird Word (read her poem from May 2022), Discretionary Love, and more. She wrote freelance Lifestyle stories for a local newspaper, and was the copy editor for another paper. She writes a blog called Inanities at https://nancywriteon.wordpress.com.

Photo by Agata Create on Unsplash

The Unboxing

13 October 2022 /

Poetry by Jennifer Campbell

Recalling craftsmen
and cobblestone streets,
I may be the apprentice,
laying rice paper
between leather straps
in a protective shield.
I slide slips over leather pulls
and foam circles
over grommets
and buckles.

I give myself permission.

I leave no fingerprints
on silver. The scent
of earth lets go
with each fold and tuck,
wrap and smooth.

The finished product
grows incrementally smaller,
an act of love
expressed one too many times.

Jennifer Campbell is an English professor in Buffalo, NY, and a co-editor of Earth’s Daughters. She has published two full-length poetry books and a chapbook of reconstituted fairytale poems. Jennifer’s work appears in The Healing Muse, San Pedro River Review, The Sixty-Four Best Poets of 2019, and Paterson Review.

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

Night’s Turning

22 April 2022 /

Poetry by Robert Okaji

If I am the leaking valve, you are the whisper
tugging me back, the hummingbird’s nectar.

When you speak, the thunder listens.
When you brush your hair, stars erupt in the mesosphere.

Your gravity transcends all others, tethers me to life.
In this frame, on this bed, at this instant, I melt.

I relinquish the green beetles, the rodents of destiny and all the little
trees. I relinquish my sorrows, my secrets, their bluest songs.

You are the storm’s respite, the eye of the world at the night’s
last turning, the bridge between hands and the healing stone.

Robert Okaji lives in Indiana. His work has been published or is forthcoming in The Night Heron Barks, Vox Populi, Exilé Sans Frontières, Salamander Ink Magazine and elsewhere.

a bird behind a brown counttrytside a windowbrown window curtain
Photo by Kepika Thapa on Pexels.com

Astronomers Estimate That There Are at least Seven Letters in the Word “Romance”

23 March 2022 /

Poetry by Rich Boucher

Maybe I could be a bird
that will always live outside your window
and just when you need inspiration
I’ll just start talking
but you won’t be scared,
even though you were expecting birdsong:
you’ll be so shocked and then
this shock will blossom cracklingly
into inspiration; I wish I could tell you
what was whispered in my ear
when I asked why I existed
in kindergarten and a teacher leaned down
and actually told me the reason;
you can laugh at my fear of mailmen
all you like but when was the last time
you got a letter that wasn’t lying
when it said you should be happy;
mock my faith in the primary colors
but tell me you’ve never felt the intensity
of red and chose instead to call it a kind of blush,
tell me your shivers don’t call to mind blue,
swear to me you’ve never seen a yellow ambulance
and found yourself in complete agreement.
I’d love to meet the person you need me to be
and tell him that I might not be much
but at least I don’t have a degree
in the study of room temperatures;
romance is a word that has just enough letters
to spell itself and put me into a weird headspace
where I’m the one person who never learned
how to take sticks and turn them
into the because of fire,
but if you ever need someone
who can genuinely be afraid of the dark,
well, that’s something I can certainly do for you.

Rich Boucher resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Rich’s poems have appeared in Bending Genres, Menacing Hedge and Stink Eye, among others, and he has work forthcoming in Boats Against The Current and Amethyst Review. Rich is BOMBFIRE Magazine’s Associate Editor, and he is the author of All Of This Candy Belongs To Me.

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