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The Bluebird

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Alexander Posey
1873 –
1908

A winged bit of Indian sky
Strayed hither from its home on high.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 12, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.

Alexander Posey

Alexander Lawrence Posey, born August 3, 1873, was a Muskogee Creek poet, journalist, and humorist known for his poems and Fus Fixico letters.

About Alexander Posey
Themes
Audio
Birds
Landscapes
Nature
Pastoral
Public Domain
About this Poem

“The Bluebird” first appeared in Song of the Oktahutche: Collected Poems (University of Nebraska Press, 2008), a comprehensive anthology of the poetry of Alexander Posey. Unpublished at the time of Posey’s death, the poem was discovered in a manuscript collection of his work housed at the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In the introduction to the anthology, Matthew Wynn Sivils, Dean’s Professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University, writes, “[Alexander Posey’s] nature poems―especially those devoted to birds and the ubiquitous Oktahutche―repeatedly manage to call forth inventive lines and singing language that collectively represent a love letter written to the natural world as one would find it within the Muscogee nation. For example, Posey’s very brief poem ‘The Bluebird’ works precisely because of its brevity: its straightforward yet striking image and simple delivery portray an Indian Territory sky found only in Posey’s literary world. [. . .] The best of Posey’s nature poetry becomes a sort of Indian Territory pastoral that ranks with the best verse of that time.”

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More by this poet

To Wahilla Enhotulle

(To the South Wind)

O Wind, hast thou a sigh
   Robbed from her lips divine
Upon this sunbright day—
   A token or a sign?

Oh, take me, Wind, into
   Thy confidence, and tell
Me, whispering soft and low,
   The secrets of the dell.

Oh, teach me what it is
   The meadow flowers say
As to and fro they nod
   Thro’ all the golden day.

Alexander Posey
1910

Song of the Oktahutche

Far, far, far are my silver waters drawn;
       The hills embrace me loth to let me go;
The maidens think me fair to look upon,
       And trees lean over glad to hear me flow.
Thro’ field and valley, green because of me,
       I wander, wander to the distant sea.

Alexander Posey
1900

Seashells

I picked up shells with ruby lips
  That spoke in whispers of the sea,
Upon a time, and watched the ships,
    On white wings, sail away to sea.

The ships I saw go out that day
    Live misty—dim in memory;
But still I hear, from far away,
    The blue waves breaking ceaselessly. 

Alexander Posey
2021
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Here shall my heart find its haven of calm,
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The air is aglow with the glint and whirl

Sarojini Naidu
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                                  I

Emily Pauline Johnson
1917

from Stray Birds [233—237]

233

            In heart’s perspective the distance looms large.

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            The moon has her light all over the sky, her dark spots to herself.

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Rabindranath Tagore
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