poetry jam :: signs by lucille clifton

when the birds begin to walk 

when the crows in their silk tuxedos

stand in the road and watch 

as oncoming traffic swerves to avoid 

the valley of dead things

when the geese reject the sky

and sit on the apron of highway 95

one wing pointing north the other south

and what does it mean this morning

when a man runs wild eyed from his car

shirtless and shoeless his palms spread wide

into the jungle of traffic into a world

gone awry the birds beginning to walk

the man amlonst naked cawing 

almost lifting straining to fly

a daily(ish) poem + prompt

In Clifton’s poem (from Blessing the Boats, 2000), the world is falling apart in bizarre and upsetting ways. Things aren’t behaving the way they “should” and the natural order is frayed. Think about the moments in your life where you have this feeling. Like nothing makes sense, like the world and everything (everybody) you believed in are immolating. Write to that. What does it look like as reflected in the natural world? Your internal world? The liminality of your dreams? Try to capture the off-kilter, heartbreaking, surreality of it.