Birds give all they know to their wings by Anne Waldman

  
                      for and after Ilhan Comak
  
 Open the door to the retina, 
 the brain infuses to a single  
        3 dimensional  image
 Physiological imagination, we need you
 Light through the chinks of mind 
 We need your tactile imagination
 Open the door to the phenomenal world
 The writing on this page, miles away
 I feel your compassion as it flies
  
 Lands on stem of leaves and flowers
 Of one pointed mind. 
 The wilting lily, o lily of my childhood
 In a city of speed and  forbidden impulse
 Lily at the window, welcome her wellbeing
 Rooted in a lotus-symbol, born of mud 
 Welcome the multitudes I know you are there
 For one another and the lone poet who can sing
 Of human perception 
 Freedom for heart, hand, justice
 Who sings of dancing with existence 
  
 Earlier the flicker, a bird of toil
 Rare in a city yard
 Boring his holes in the truck of a soft tree
 The world at risk in its ignorance of love & sound
 & innocence, but is welcomed as utopia
 In narrations  of hermetic worlds bursting to be heard
 And the bird giving all it knows, no manipulation
  
 Open the door, ear & eye


Bio: Internationally recognized and acclaimed poet Anne Waldman 
has been an active member of the “Outrider” experimental poetry
community, a culture she has helped create and nurture for over 
four decades as writer, editor, teacher, performer, magpie scholar, 
infra-structure curator, and cultural/political activist. Her poetry 
is recognized in the lineage of Whitman and Ginsberg, and in the Beat, 
New York School, and Black Mountain trajectories of the 
New American Poetry. But has raised the bar as a feminist, 
activist and powerful performer. She has read in the streets 
as well as numerous larger venues such as the Dodge Literary Festival 
in the USA and the Jaipur Literature Festival in India and continues 
to teach poetics all over the world. 
Source: https://www.annewaldman.org/