“Man with Birds and Bread” by Erin MurphyPosted by Rattle
Erin Murphy
MAN WITH BIRDS AND BREAD
a cento
On the edges of the afternoon
we lie on the beach, gray waves
the only language,
the gun-gray curlings of salt-tongue.
A man slogs through the soft sand
with an expired loaf of bread.
Look how he kneels,
holding out his palms as if catching snow.
Seagulls peep like Erinyes wearing
white linen suits, sky-jockeying
into a swinging web of flying sound
on their parameter of hunger.
A cacophony of needs—
synonym for human, perhaps.
His home is an ocean away.
There / the moon hangs like a golden mango.
There / the beach is the wind’s body
flecked with violet
where the light, aflame,
used to hum in the siesta’s honey,
donde la luz zumbaba enardecida
en la miel de la siesta,
There / a song curls inside you,
songs of children, songs of birds,
cantos de niños y de aves.
All of a sudden:
a call, loud and mean, while flashes of light
rise just over the beach grass at our backs.
A four-wheeler.
Birds scatter
like fireworks on el Cuatro de Julio.
Hatred glosses
in the cave of the mouth—
a mouth as a cold wind.
Above, in the yellow sky, a phrase drifts
to us like smoke from distant fires.
The breeze isn’t silent.
Look how he kneels,
face toward the light,
a man who tilts his bread in the sun,
the bag of bones:
I am I am still here still here.
How bitter is the bread of bitterness.
If I burn the world around me—
el mundo que me rodea—
until it shines beautiful and brown,
how does one undrown?
Cento credits: John Hoffman, Pia Täavila-Borsheim, Erin Coughlin Hollowell, Linda Bierds, Peter Makuck, Rodney Jones, Dana Levin, Jennifer Foerster, Garrett Hongo, John Ciardi, Eva Alice Counsell, Reginald Shepherd, Julie Marie Wade, Michael Broder, Lola Ridge, Huascar Medina, Jonathan Wells, H.D., Olga Orozco (trans. from Spanish by Mary Crow), BrandonLee Cruz, Gabriela Mistral (trans. from Spanish by Ursula K. Le Guin), Juan Felipe Herrera, Lily Darling, Noelle Kocot, Ron Silliman, Emanual Xavier, Cynthia Hogue, Ellen Bass, Canisia Lubrin, Alexandra Peary, Marilyn Nelson, Myronn Hardy, Forrest Gander, Chase Berggrun, Joseph Fasano, Chim Sher Ting, Mahogany L. Browne, Khaled Mattawa, Ashley M. Jones, Niki Herd
Erin Murphy: “Whenever I visit the Outer Banks of North Carolina, I see a Latino man feeding seagulls on the beach after work. He speaks Spanish to the birds, gesturing with his hands for them to come down to eat. The birds seem to recognize him and swarm around him for bread. This week, I witnessed a vehicle speeding along the beach and coming dangerously close to the man. The driver and passenger were yelling at the man and pumping their fists. The birds dispersed. I don’t think it’s an accident that this happened the same week that Axios reported that Latino activists are concerned about increasing hate crimes against immigrants. I chose the cento form for this poem because the experience called for a multiplicity of voices.” (web)
Micah Ackerman Hirsch: “As a Jew opposed to the ongoing genocide being committed in Gaza, I struggled with how to commemorate Aaron Bushnell. Judaism has very little to say about concepts like martyrdom, theologically valuing existence and struggle in this world over seeking the next. So much do we focus on this Earthly life over Heaven that our prayer for the dead, the Kaddish Yatom, says nothing about death at all. Instead, it asks the mourners to praise God beyond all humanly conceptions of what it means to praise something, and expresses our longing for the day when the peace embodied by divinity exists permanently in our world. And so, following Father Daniel Berrigan’s poetry of protest and the long Jewish tradition of rewriting prayers to meet our contemporary trials, I wrote this Kaddish, a mourning prayer, a poem, for Aaron.”
Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach: “I’m at a loss for words for the continued violence against Ukraine, my birthplace. And yet, I keep finding more insufficient ones. I keep turning to form to provide some semblance of order amid atrocity that resists sense or comprehension. War analysts thought Kyiv would fall in two days, but February 24th marked two years. Two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion and still, Ukraine remains standing. Two years of fight, resistance, and endurance. If you are able, please consider contributing to an aid organization that helps those who are in Ukraine and refugees trying to flee. I recommend Ukraine TrustChain. An all volunteer-run nonprofit started by Ukrainian immigrants in the U.S., they work with local volunteers on the ground, going directly into areas hard to reach by larger international organizations. TrustChain provides urgent food, medical supplies, and transportation to safer regions. Poetry is often criticized for making nothing happen in the real world, but poetry has raised thousands of dollars for Ukraine. You reading this poem and asking questions about the global violence that continues is the beginning of action.” (web)
Chera Hammons: “There was a weird confluence of events this week. The Super Bowl. Another high profile mass shooting. Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday were the same day. I saw several different stories about asteroids (one saying that water had been found, but the water molecules are chemically bonded to the minerals in the asteroid; one about how an asteroid might hit earth on Valentine’s Day 2046; and one about an asteroid ‘the size of two love boats’ passing by). Every time there’s a story about an asteroid nearing earth on my news feed, I take a screenshot because the measurements used to define them are so bizarre. I have quite a collection now, but my favorite is the asteroid said to be the size of 64 Canada geese.” (web)
Alixa Brobbey: “There is currently a cocoa shortage. I cannot think of chocolate, or Valentine’s Day, without thinking about child labor in my father’s homeland, Ghana.” (web)
Maryann Corbett: “Although this ‘event’ has not been the subject of any story in the mainstream media, most of us have seen it happening: on Facebook, people are posting pictures of themselves at age 21. We can’t seem to resist it. I decided to write a poem instead.” (web)
Beneth Goldschmidt-Sauer: “Scientists think they have discovered why moths and other nocturnal insects are drawn to light; it’s a glitch we’ve introduced into their evolutionary engineering, caused by our pervasive light pollution. Their discovery provides both an indictment of the damage we have done to our planet and also a tidy metaphor for damaging relationships.”
