Chichikov

WHICH CAUSED THE HEART TO LEAP
By Pavel Chichikov

Circled bloody feathers
The center has a head
A robin, eye and yellow beak
Cloven until dead

Quickly one would hope
By an owl or a hawk
Sloping through the morning forest
Drifting through a stalk

We have seen a redtail
Talons gray as lead
Lying by the creek side trail
Formidable and dead

And so around the spinning world
Even mountains die
Their corpses are the seaside shore
Why not you and I?

I think there is a question
Searching for an answer
What is there beyond this life
That’s hidden by a censor?

Are there only carcasses
Of that which was alive?
Or is there something more of which
No life can be deprived?

Either there is nothing
Or there is more to meet
On walking out one April day
Than death beneath one’s feet

I think there is a mystery
That sometimes I have heard
That once there was a man on earth
A spirit and a word

And he was like the robin
All bloody in a heap
But then returned to life again
Which caused the heart to leap

The Poetry of Pavel Chichikov