Tuesday, December 10, 2013

The Sound of a Bird

The following is a poem written by Arielle Zelinski, one of this year's Little Village Volunteers, for her community's Los Posadas Advent Reflections.

Not so long and yet so long ago,
I, a wanderer, perched and slumped in the
chair of the day’s controlled routine
change
                                                welcomes 
and intrudes
only to intrude and welcome again
an inevitable friend and foe, outside my window
            and inside my soul,
change
is a bird singing, hope,
following me with my heavy backpack
filled with fears, regrets, and longings
but hope persists,
“Hope” is the thing with feathers - *
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
while
fear
p
o
u
r
s
the bird rests on a branch
emptying out reminders, remembering my past:
           
driving in a car up to college
            waving good-bye to high school
            and unknowingly stepping back
            into self-doubt, with my first C in English
           
two days before departure to Italy
hands drenched in tears, fear of the unknown—
living across the ocean, with strangers,
for three and a half months
and the possibility of not making friends

calling a friend, and considering
staying back from South Carolina
a week-long service trip to help build houses
to instead work on deserted papers and unread books

a year later, another week long service trip,
to Chicago, another trail of questions
but yet at a school, working with middle schoolers,
and staying with volunteers at Amate, Little Village

all these fears and longings,
invented
but as I stand and reflect,
reflect and stand,
I open my window, allowing the overcast,
the obscurity inside
and with my once fearful eyes
opens them to a bird, chirping,
this bird and this woman grown
            driven with hope
cross into a darkly lit opening
and I, a wanderer,
gently merge
onto another wanderer’s path
but
carrying personal baggage up, up
packed with intrigue and curiosity
as uncertainty dresses their new walls
while one by one they uncover
their reality
unfamiliar voices echo in different places
dusting the past insides of a present dresser
once another’s,
in a world intersected by people and stories and places
            this other wanderer, a new community member,
a traveller from the west, a tall black woman with dreads
experiences so similar and different
   shepherds her community as she beautifully articulates
   truth and experience
   for she bears wisdom,
reliant yet deviant, trustworthy and honest
            she, the Holy Spirit in disguise, the bird
            singing
            with hope, God sent her with great purpose
but this traveller needs to break free
of her cage, for Amate,
her two and a half months,
she must continue onwards, a different direction
sooner than the other eight, she leaves behind,

the other woman uncertain again
and clenches a fist
and releases
only to cry
cry
and cry

but a week later
before closing my window
I open it a crack
to listen to
a faint sound of a bird

*First Stanza from "'Hope' is the Thing with Feathers", by Emily Dickinson.

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