Franz Wright: Like Touching a Bird’s Exposed Heart with Your Tongue

Reading this poem on Vale of Soul-Making struck me to the core, it is so exquisite.

That mingling of the erotic with child-like wonder.

That last line, so unexpected. So perfect.

Untitled

This was the first time I knelt
and with my lips, frightened, kissed
the lit inwardly pink petaled lips.

It was like touching a bird’s exposed heart
with your tongue.

Summer dawn flowing into the room parting the
curtains—the lamps dimming—breeze
rendered visible. Lightning,
and then soft applause
from the leaves . . .

Almost children, we lay asleep in love listening to the
rain.

We didn’t ask to be born.

— Franz Wright, “Untitled,” Earlier Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007)

Are we not all like a bird’s beating heart waiting to be touched deeply?

We did not ask to be born. Yet here we are, out of nowhere, dropped into this world of wonder. How can we account for that?

All we can do, given this gift of grace, is to keep parting all the tender petals before us till the core of who we are is revealed.