Emerging Poet Award Finalist: “Window bird” by Yasmin Zainab Bergemann

Window bird 

eyes up from my screen, i see an egret 

white, with her neck crooked in that peculiar way 

    of egrets and the earth.

she is white against a mostly grey sky, these clouds are with blue spots between them

    I would still say this sky is grey. 

it’s things like this, that can make me cry. 

today though, I think I’m too tired and my eyes burn already. 

I narrow them and squint, 

    through my computer’s camera I think I look mean, I’m sorry.

I tell myself, and my friends, those who do care about me,

    that I’m doing better because I’m thinking about it less. 

but, I think something strong might still be there - a little bit, always maybe.

I’m doing so well I stay up all night not thinking, 

not thinking about that which doesn’t nourish me anymore,

this is easier said than done.

i eat fumes of something from the past because they make me sleepy but they fill me with bloat, I know that’s not good.

instead,

as green leaves blow that betray the air,

as my eyes freeze in the wind of my fan: 

to honor the holes, dark and earthy

    (which used to be filled with love touchable and full of growth 

    but at the bottom i can see now there is gravel)

an egret flies by my window

and a hot tear rolls down my cheek. 

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EMERGING POET AWARD FINALIST “Window bird”

Yasmin Zainab Bergemann is a student at Yale University, where she studies Ecology & Evolutionary Biology with urban and landscape design in mind. She wrote this poem while living in New York for the summer, where she felt very strongly the disconnect between her constrained apartment life and that of the rest of the natural world.