A Cardinal Caught My Eye – a poem by Lara E. Lehman

A Cardinal Caught My Eye

A flutter of wing in the corner, 
at the edge. 
You caught my eye, 
Cardinal. 

At first, I marvelled at your color: 
royal, regal, rageful red.
A crisp and sunny crimson, 
aside the bloody sunset–

But your black eye stared, teasing me. 
It said you had a message meant for only me. 
Are you a messenger, Cardinal, sent from above? 
Or elsewhere? Is that why you caught my eye today?

You caught my eye this morning, you did! 
You caught my eye, and I caught my breath… 
Your vermillion coat shimmered with a thousand diamonds of tender, white snow,
and I felt the cold that blankets my heart begin 
            to melt 
                        for grateful, graceful 
                                     Beauty.

Cardinal: 
I think you are here to sing 
a new love to me!
Is that the substance of your song? 
            New love?
                       New love for me?

Are you here to catch my eye
 	and my breath 
                       and my heart
                                      in my throat?

For they are there now, Cardinal,
standing at the ready.
Soldiers, chanting their surrender 
into the howling 
                       winter 	
                                      wind.

Cardinal, please sing to me of new love!
Sing a song for someone 
who desires to know of my too-large heart.
What flutters inside this swelling cage but hope? 

What swells in time, dwells in mine…
Is that a lyric spilled from new love’s lips, Cardinal?
I did not know how sorely my ear ached for this melody 
Until you sang it into my eye 
and my breath 
and my heart 
in my throat.

Cardinal: 
Who is this new love? 
By what name 
will I know him?

Sing to me, Cardinal!
Pour your song into this chalice, Cardinal, 
filling its far too-largeness with 
love’s light at long last.

Cardinal stops.
And sings to me, 
and I laugh
             at the familiar sound 
                           of 	
                                       my 
                                                    own 
                                                                  name.

Lara E. Lehman is a former teacher and performer, now in her West Coast writing era. She enjoys writing about writing, creativity, nature, consciousness, and faith. Currently, she is at work on a novel that reconsiders the Salem witch trials. Essays on craft are forthcoming in The Artisanal Writer and The Writer’s Chronicle while other work has appeared in The English Journal and Text and Performance Quarterly, among others. She is a reader for The Broad Ripple Review Literary Journal. Find her on Medium @thestorydoctorisin.