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.