Two Poems:​ Dorothy Livesay

FOR THE NEW YEAR

Stamped in the throat
bird song
biologists say
is inevitable
as that beak that eye
that red wing
is not learned
is born with the bird.

Perhaps then there’s another
dimension behind our learned
word patterns …
perhaps an infinite song
sways in our throats
yet to be heard?

.. … .. … .. … ..

FIRE AND REASON

I cannot shut out the night –
Nor its sharp clarity.
The many blinds we draw.
You and I,
The many fires we light
Can never quite obliterate
The irony of stars,
The deliberate moon,
The last, unsolved finality
Of night
Dorothy Livesay (1909-1996)