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The Peacock
For Flannery O’Connor, who died from Lupus, at the age of 39
You are wounded, little pea chick
Wounds go deep like jagged cliffs and steep ravines
But come from the inside, out
You were not born with such crooked flesh and cartilage
Or were you?
What else have you acquired
That alters your walk?
You are young
But brittle, cramped, distorted
Still the eyes embedded on your feathers
Are in place, folded shyly, not like the perfect
Waiting to preen.
The world grows impatient,
Waiting. This is the via dolorosa.
Your altered path takes its time
Its own sweet time
From ground to post to limb
In the span of the day
We wonder
Will you shine in your height
Before the night falls
When the day dims We wonder
will we see you again
With fewer feathers
Or none at all,
stripped
In the wake of your path
You will preen once again
When the lilies bloom,
Parting, purified
by what you trail
Healed of all brokenness,
All wounds and sores balmed
Bathed in light and joy
Fully restored, fully reconciled
Whole and perfect, in the glory
Still we wait
We wait for ourselves
Bind our own wounds
Addle our own way
Lost, until beckoned
~Linda Marie Louie
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