The BLUEBIRD (tender trust)

Free Style

~ teach me ~

If I come a fledgling bluebird

will you teach me how

to sing;

when I've fallen from my nest

will you mend my

broken-wing?

If I land upon your shoulder

fly my way into

your heart,

will you let me know your love's

safe haven ~ nevermore

we'll part?

If I learn to love and trust you,

bring you twigs from

tender bough ...

will you hold me gently to your breast,

my joyous songs will

you allow?

Will your heart soar to see me fly

as I glide aloft upon our

drafts sublime,

my wings spread in proudest glory,

showing my love for you

each time?

When winter's snows have fallen,

will I find you there

to share,

for all my life to you

give all I have,

my beauty

my wings

my voice

... and yet ...

will you really

always

care?

Richard W. Jenkins

©2015

"Trust for and dedication to another living-being is commitment

never to take lightly or for granted ~ The heart and soul

are truly fragile things to take into one's own care,

all too often misunderstood as weakness." 

Author's Note

"Bluebird of Happiness"
Acrylic on Masonite by Spencer Writhstile

Critical, well-intended, reviews are always appreciated. : )

Reviews

[Lisasview]

Wow, Richard..yet another glorious poem that says so much.. Thoughts hidden behind simple words fill the page with love and caring.
I only see strength in your underlying words.. As for me love for another is a true showing of strength.
As I write this review I am going back and read your poem again.. I find by rereading a poem several times I find more hidden meaning..
Love every word..dear Richard.
Lisa

[Richard🖌]

My warmest "thank you," Lisa 🙏

… from a grateful heart your graciously lovely words have filled to overflowing.
It's true, I'm but a simple bard with simple words to express the simplicity of my humble thoughts, feelings, emotions, desires, fantasies, and most vividly active imagination … blah-blah-blah!
Yes, Lisa, I agree with you about love, and it is definitely not for sissies.

Thanks for your second read, Lisa Dear, and for loving so much of what my rugged olde pen strokes upon the page … hugs! ⁓ Richard🖌

[Karmee]

This write is a very lovely piece, I enjoyed this write.

when I've fallen from my nest
will you mend my
broken-wing?

I really love this part, It stood out to me. Awesome!!

[Richard🖌]

Hi-ya, Kit ✨
Such beautiful words you've left in review for this gentle little piece in homage to trust … thank you ever-so gratefully.
Those lines you highlighted are among my favorites, too. : )

Your expressed enjoyment and praise are wonderful gratification for my humble labors … big hug, Kit! ⁓ Richard 🍃

[Susan 🦋]

Just reading this again... just because. :-)

[Richard🖌]

Some things are worth a second look, Dear Susan,
If for no other reason than, "just because". ; )

Thanks for taking another peek! ⁓ Richard🍃

[Sarah K Cass]

Reminded of a song from the 70's ( I was but a lass) called Bluebird which went 'spread your tiny wings and fly away'. Loved that song. Love this poem.

[Richard🖌]

Hi, Sarah! : )
Thank you for loving anything Me.
I love that beautiful song, "Snowbird", by Anne Murray, too … it is one of my favorites to pick 'n sing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2os881-k6w

Thank you, M'Dear Lady-Poet … hugs! ⁓ Richard 🍃

[‘Thoughts In Time..]

Beautiful- wanting seeking needing that place of softness and security knowing you can return to that safe haven like the Swallow returns to the same place every year knowing the safety of the year before- trusting that it shall be found safe again- softness of the song of the melody echoed as it sings- 🌹

[Richard🖌]

Wonderfully spoken, Kelly,
Your words are as a warm caress of understanding, gratitude, and appreciation … exactly what a bard hopes to receive from his readers minds, hearts, and souls.

Wit warmest hugs 'n blessings of gracious thanks! ⁓ Richard : )

[‘Thoughts In Time’🌹]

Graceful thanks and pleasures are mine🌹

[lightsong]

Some words touch, and some words tear the page, to touch... in need to be touched, some things caress the heart with loveliness, overwhelm it, making it flutter and dance, some things caress the heart with beauty, a beauty that pours and pours to the edge, then flows a river... floods a waterfall, and then You start feeling pain, an ethereal pain, that pain of the first baby breath, finding the way into the lungs, the birth of a miracle hurts, the first flow of life inside the veins hurts... only crying is the expression seen.

is it the joyous bliss, that there is a BLUEBIRD singing here over the page, or is it the pain that I can hear him, but I can't reach?

it's not only about the ethereal delicacy, it's the way Your words tear up from the page, to settle in my depths, from Your "inner" somewhere unknown, to my inner "somewhere unknown" each sing, happy and sad, loving and loved, trusted and trusting... misunderstood to weakness, yes that's one problem, "always care" that's the other one... people must stop judging emotional sensitive beings, accuse them with weakness, or accuse the strong ones to be insensitive, I always tuned my ears away from what others might think of me, I didn't need or want their own judgements when I know my own self better than what they know about their own ones, and IF there, there is that heavenly haven of Yours, when You can be You, the real true You... how come You won't trust it completely? not being commitment to it? abandoning Your self wholly to it? free with no fears? revealing even the fragile parts of You? the wounds? the scars?

if there is any poem that reveals Your most beautiful gentlest sensitive inner that would be this, if there any poem that reveals the true loving lover You are, that's it, and if there is a poem that reveals the pure secretive essence of You, the little baby boy, the man and the bard, that would be it too.

that's not only a poem, that's a most special one, a song of love, hurt, loneliness, need and ache, sung in a bittersweet voice of Your core, the little blue bird. 

[Richard🖌]

Dear GH,
No doubt my little Bluebird poem has touched you deeply, inspiring such thoughtful, insightful sharings out from within your lovely, compassionate, insightful core.
To receive an image-laden, in-depth, appreciated , and inspired review like yours here is the goal and dream of most every poetess or poet when they ply their most ardent efforts to write for, involve, and please their readers, and if only one of them is reached, in the way(s) you have been, they'll know their labors have not been wasted.
Much of that which you've shared touches in ways that are truly awakening to my senses, gratifying to my hopes, and deeply rewarding and assuring to the power of even a simple Free Style poem, such as this.

Bless your beautiful heart and generously expressive and giving soul … warmest, most appreciative hugs to You, Dear, Kind Lady-Poet … humbly, yours! ⁓ Richard

[emipoemi]

Some lines are musically wonky compared to the rest of the poem, but all in all, holy kwap! For starters, I can relate (you and I share a common interest in bluebirds as a symbol of love), and second of all, the narrative, the imagery, the juicy lines - everything is simply divine. Much enjoyed! Well done! (mend the musicality issues, and this would be an absolute gem)!

[Richard🖌]

Thank you, Sir!
It is a joyful honor to write for you.
Your praise and accolades are more than amply gratifying to my humble efforts, and how pleased I truly am you've found such enjoyable aspects of this work to comment on.
Let me know which lines you consider "musically wonky" and what that means, and I will give consideration them.

Thank you again for such a thoughtful review! ⁓ Richard : )

[emipoemi]

You'll be able to hear which ones if you read it aloud. Listen to how the first stanza flows....and how the second stanza. You'll find that Stanza 4 is a bit off. I can tell that it's a bit of a bridge (it very much seems so), but the stanza itself seems like it's trying to be like all the others while still trying to be different. Such an act is hard to pull off, and it's best to either go one way or the other.. Also in Stanza 5, the drawn out ending is a good device in poetry, but the musicality os not working with it. Doesn't mean that it can't be fixed, you just have to feel it, and listen to where the drawn out portion should start. (Don't try to control things, for poetry is an art, and much of art is craft.....but poetry is also spiritual, and we as mortal beings have no power over the divine. Don't control, collaborate. Feel it).

[Richard🖌]

Your comments make me wonder if you realize this is an unmetered Free Style composition (Free Verse with intermittent rhymes).
If it were Quatrains (for instance) with a set rhyme-scheme and set metering, I would not agree more with your assessments of this particular piece.
As a long-tenured teacher of poetry, I fully and completely grasp the inferences and value of your dissertation on what poetry is -- art and craft-wise, power over the divine (Shakespearean-like), and resisting the tendency to control (contrive), to harmonize, to flow into/with a natural feel, etc; etc; etc … all excellent, valid advice that I don't in the least mind being reminded of, as I often find it necessary to drill such fineries into my own students' psyche … LOL!

I think you are a caring, well-intended reviewer, and I thank you most humbly and gratefully, my fine, accomplished Poet Friend! ⁓ Richard : )

[emipoemi]

With all due respect, I did realize that this is a rhymed Free Verse.....well, to be honest, the Free Verse factor wasn't consciously in my mind, but I could tell there was no scanning involved. Musicality, sir, is a word every poet needs to know, and it's a word that is NOT synonymous with rhythm/metre (although the two may seem the same). Rhythm/metre marks time. It can be scanned metrinomically. Musicality can't. It simply flows. It's the seamless progression from thought to thought and line to line. It doesn't matter the length of the lines, so long as the right words are landing on the right beats. Because you rhyme, you already set your poem up for a type of fixed scansion, in the sense that all the hardest beats are going to be the rhymes, so the lines need to flow with a type of musicality that would allow for that. If they don't, then they evidently sound wonky, and that's what I'm pointing out. Not all rhyming poems need to be quatrains or sonnets, etc. Ready the pages of my poems containing my third and current phase (especially), and you'll see there are some poems that rhyme and are not quatrains or sonnets....and the majority of them run on musicality.....not necessarily rhythm.

[Richard🖌]

I cannot say I disagree with you in what you've offered.
In fact, to accomplish this "musicality", there was a once when everything I wrote, whether metered, rhymed, or not, I composed in iambic beat, and that is not an altogether bad idea.
Remember, in Free Style, the rhymes are not set, but completely intermittent, although, well-placed in order to accommodate a reasonable/comfortable sense of rhythm.

[Wild Rose]

Yes! Yes!
I would give all that
to you pretty bluebird

And when winters cold doth fall
I will feed and keep you warm
Till Spring cometh round again

Will you stay with me
When spring warms up
And food is less rare

[Richard🖌]

Well,
After those fetching poetical words, as a fledgling bluebird, I think I surely would.read moreWell,
After those fetching poetical words, as a fledgling bluebird, I think I surely would.

🎶 "CHIRP!" 🎶

Thanks a million, Poet! ⁓ Richard : )

[marilyn 1225]

tender loving kind poem to your beloved... beautiful

[Richard🖌]

Thank you for reading, Lady Marilyn,
Your accolades and praise truly bless this tender little piece from my more gentle side.

I enjoy pulling thoughts, feelings, and emotions from my imagination to share with poetess and poet friends … big hugs and a beautiful day to Thee! ⁓ Richard : )

[marilyn 1225]

THANKS IT IS SPRING HERE

[Richard🖌]

Yes, I know … it's Spring here, too. : )

[Kathy Van Kurin]

Richard,
This poem comes As the vulnerable openness of a heart laid out. In fact as I studied this one I felt that Mr. Blue Bird began to take on personality and soul, even desire and questions of the reader's very life.
As in; "will you mend my broken wing?" "Will you teach me how to sing?" The context is pretty real, as this is a "fledgling blackbird" and "fallen from it's nest."
In just this beginning portion, I could really 'see' the reality of this effort made by your subject.
"If I land upon your shoulder
Fly my way into your heart
Will you let me know your love's
safe haven never more
we'll part?
The entry, 'teach me' at the beginning of this poem is a great start, for in life we are taught if we are teachable.
Trust, giving and sharing were all seen within "Bluebird."
Bless you,
Kathy

[Richard🖌]

Gosh, Dearheart,
Another prime example how the site stumbles in letting me know I've received a sumptuous review to one of my humble little pieces, and such an embracingly beautiful review it is.
Kathy, I love writing for You, because you always flow all through my words, gathering every nuance of their essences to reveal with your sweet, knowing poetic voice we've connected on a deeply personal level … you're a master reviewer with a heart and mind of pure gold.

Thank you ever-so warmly and gratefully, Lady Kathy, for once again gracing my page with your tender touch … hugs! ⁓ Richard

[Kathy Van Kurin]

Richard,
Bluebird was a study for me of some aspect of caring and patience. Do I want caring treatment from others? We all do I think. It's neat to have and opportunity to find little lessons tucked away in such a prtty package such as your poem. You affirmation is so nice and all I can say is thank you.
Bless you today and tomorrow.....
Kathy