The Bluebird Word

An Online Literary Journal for Poetry and Flash

Tag: fear

blue and brown spots
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Wolves

2 May 2023 /

Poetry by Alice Collinsworth

When I was very young, my parents assured me
there were no wolves near our home, in spite of fairy tales.
Wolves lived in forests, in mountains, they said.
We had neither trees nor hills.

When I grew older, we visited a zoo, where I saw wolves
kept in cages, pacing, squinting through the insufficient bars
between us. Calculating.

Then came rumors of wolves roaming the plains,
sightings at local farms, small dogs
suddenly missing. I could hear them wail.

Then they came to live with me, right here in town.
They’ve built a den on the porch and they come inside,
helping themselves to sandwiches and wine,
sharpening the knives.

I no longer have a cat.

I slink upstairs and listen to their laughter
and the clink of silverware.
Helpless, I howl in anticipation.

Alice Collinsworth retired recently from a career involving journalism, writing, and media relations. Her poems have been published in several online journals, and she was twice selected as one of Oklahoma’s Woody Guthrie Poets. Her writing has won awards in numerous local and regional contests. She lives near Oklahoma City.

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Dusk

27 November 2022 /

Poetry by Carol Barrett

Translucent colors of sky loll in the stream,
such reverie, this dusk in the high desert,
a pour of beauty into my humble cup.

I relish the taste, sipping that place where blue
and dawn pink merge, flick a gnat from my sleeve.
Just then something stings the wits out of me,

the nose of a bear bigger than a hornet, sniffing
my favorite bench, no doubt where a dog had lifted
nimble leg. I raise my knees and slowly stand

on the plank, the bear paying little heed, ambling
down the bank to plunge his snout and drink.
I consider running, but we’re just yards apart,

fleeting distance daunting. I stand my ground,
writing tablet clutched, futile weapon, await
his next move. Strange how you can

count the clumps of grass in such a scene,
hoping not to bloody them. Five. I hear
far-away doves, watch a spider descend

from a black twig. She makes it to a leaf.
The bear has had enough, climbs the bank,
leaves the path for needled footing,

disappears over a small rise. I come down
from my perch, thank the gods, head home,
remembering family camp at Spirit Lake,

how my uncle crept up behind my father,
snoozing in a hammock, and let out a blood-
curdling growl. My father sat bolt upright,

then brought his breathing back from the cliff
while my uncle laughed. Fear can knock a soul
to dust. Here, the shimmering red of sunset

is winding down. You, dear reader, must decide
if I made this racket up, or told the truth
to put the beast to rest. I alone know how

it all played out. And the bear, of course.

Carol Barrett directs the Creative Writing Certificate Program at Union Institute & University. She has two volumes of poetry and one of creative nonfiction. A former NEA Fellow in Poetry, Carol has published poems in such diverse venues as JAMA, The Women’s Review of Books, Poetry International, and Oregon Birds.

photography of twigs on the ground
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We Were Bugs

24 August 2022 /

Nonfiction by Thomas E. Strunk

Growing up in a trailer park, one rarely feels significant. But we still had the bugs to look down on. I don’t know what went wrong with me, a boy from the forest bothered by bugs. Sure I was fascinated by the water-skaters that danced over the crick out back. I stood in awe at the ant hills we’d come upon in the woods, but had no desire to poke them. At best I ignored the daddy-long-legs that crawled over the hillside in summer. Yet at some point in my youth a fear crept in at things that crawled, perhaps it was a late-night movie, but more likely the katabasis I endured when I was twelve, my descent multiple times beneath our siding-enclosed trailer.

A real man of the woods my father, not frightened to inch his way along the length of the trailer and then creep to the other side where with flashlight and wrench he could turn off and on again the water. He wasn’t the kind of man to worm his way out of his responsibilities.

“We’ve got to crawl under there so I can show you how to deal with the water.” But I was not that man and begged off the mission.

“Can’t you just do it before work?”

Until my father made it clear, “And leave you with no water all day? There is no choice.” For the workers were coming to the trailer park when he was at work, and I was at summer bored and idle and able to go inching my way under the trailer.

And so I followed him on my belly the long way – the door through the siding at the back left of the trailer, our journey’s destination, the water pipes at the front right, so I could learn, like him, how to turn the water off and then on.

The next day, alone and reluctant, I entered through the siding door and left the daylight behind me. I held the flash light before me but did not look at what it illuminated for fear what I might see; rather I wriggled in the light’s general direction. I crawled with all that was under there in the darkness, sweeping cobwebs as I went. I made it to the water pipes and plied the wrench hurriedly, hoping I had twisted it enough to choke off the water. And then the return, always harder than the descent. I turned myself around on the dirt and made my way towards the light peeking through the siding door, far in the distance at first. Yet I hastened and did not turn to see what I left or what followed behind me. I came at last to the exit and crossed the threshold.

When I emerged from beneath the trailer into the light, I did not come forth braver or with new knowledge that I gained along the way, but joyful to see the blue sky and its birds free to fly above the ground. I feverishly shook off the dirt and whatever bugs had found me, never wanting to know their wisdom.

Thomas E. Strunk explores nature and working class life and strives to express the longing for spiritual, emotional, and political liberation. His literary work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pinyon, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Northern Appalachia Review and East Fork Journal. Thomas blogs at LiberationNow.org and lives in Cincinnati.

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