[Elle Bruno]

Well-Attended
xxx Richard Meyer

After the funeral they stop by
the house for lunch, an open buffet
for backyard feeders: mourning doves,
black-capped chickadees, goldfinches,
grosbeaks, nuthatches.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxSparrows belly up
to the birdbath, make room
for a stray starling on the rim.
Grackles pace the green lawn
like dark-suited ushers.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxA cardinal
pulses red on a bent pine limb, drops in
like a blood clot, calls out
what-cheer, what-cheer cheer cheer
gertie gertie gertie
as if you were here, behind gray screen,
whistling in your chair on the sunlit porch.

[James Brancheau]

Hi Richard,

This is good. I especially like the closing S, the "pulse" and the "clot" work well for me and I can really relate to this. "Sparrows belly up" lol. Ok, that was a little jarring for me, but, in the end, I have to say I like the break there. Two very small things. I guess because I want to picture a good old neighbor who has passed, I might suggest "there" instead of "here" -- but, that's probably entirely personal.* And I really don't like that there isn't a "the" before "gray screen". But, just a pet peeve of mine.

Really nice work,

JB

*On the other hand, of course, if it's a spouse who's died (and I'm thinking it is), obviously that makes it all the more poignant. So you might want to ignore the above comment . (It just reminded me of someone.)
**Stopping by again to say that this just went from sad to downright depressing after thinking about the title a bit more. Very good.

[dorianne laux]

Hello Richard- Yes, I agree with Richard that this is a sad little poem, but oddly so, which I like. It's similar to a song with a lilting, child-like tune about something horrible, ie: ashes, ashes we all fall down. And those birds are all so alive and full of color and song set against that grey screen and the cry of Gertie. The mourning doves, grackle ushers and the blot clot all work on us so that the last line comes as an "inevitable surprise". This is a small poem that does a lot of internal work. Thanks Richard. --d

[dorianne laux]

Sorry, I agree with James!!

[Elle Bruno]

I like it too Richard.
I like the surprise of the first couple of lines:
it isn't mourners coming, it's birds.
And maybe they are mourning too, probably having lost a bird lover,
almost one of their own with that whistling at the end.
I don't care for blood clot
It sticks out like a sore thumb for me.
But others like it.

nice job, Elle

[B.J. Preston]

Yes, this is quite good.
A lot is happening in a short set of lines (how poetic!), the close evoking the loss while providing a very specific sense of what that loss encompasses: what goes on, and what does not, conjured simply but with layers and pith.

I like the sans-article gray screen in the penultimate line: it translates to "hidden" more directly as is, and provides a better cadence and snap to the line ("behind the gray screen" feels rather plodding by comparison).

I don't really like the line break of line one; why not rearrange so that most of the stanzas leap off similarly, and perhaps offset the final two lines?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxAfter the funeral
they stop by the house for lunch,
an open buffet for backyard feeders:
mourning doves, black-capped chickadees,
goldfinches, grosbeaks, nuthatches.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxSparrows belly up
to the birdbath, make room
for a stray starling on the rim.
Grackles pace the green lawn
like dark-suited ushers.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxA cardinal
pulses red on a bent pine limb, drops in
like a blood clot, calls out
what-cheer, what-cheer cheer cheer
gertie gertie gertie

as if you were here, behind gray screen,
whistling in your chair on the sunlit porch.
.

[John Riley]

Yeah, Richard, nice poem, if it's ok to say such a sad poem is nice. I'm having trouble visualizing the Cardinal but that's my only nit. Thanks.

[dorianne laux]

Maybe you're right Elle, about the blood clot calling too much attention. "like a drop of blood"?

[B.J. Preston]

I also agree that blood clot does come off a tad heavy-handed.
Perhaps re-working with a simplification to an unmodified "clot" (to keep the shift from pulsing to still in place)... not sure "drops" is then quite the right verb.
.

[Brian Watson]

As I understand it, a blood clot formed elsewhere in the body, say from a broken limb, can migrate (unpredictably) to the brain or heart, causing death. I took the blood clot as an allusion to the actual cause of death, and the simile as more about death occuring in a horribly abrupt, casual, undramatic manner, like a bird landing on a bird bath, than as a pictorial description of the cardinal.

The problem is, the simile does seem to be doing double duty as a pictorial description -- and taking things perhaps more literally than necessary, blood clots are presumably not actually cardinal red. (?)

(I know absolutely nothing about biology or medicine, so all of the above could be completely wrong).