I have heard it said

That our souls have feathers.

I don’t know whether this is true

But I-

 

I am a magpie.

 

A collector

Of the ornate

The obscure

The outdated

The absurd-

The useless, some say.

 

I say unique.

 

Anything that piques my interest-

Broken stopwatches

Old typewriter keys

The snagged and tangled rainbow of half-finished cross stitches-

 

You see

 

Form may follow function,

But function far too often conforms

To a hollow practicality.

Which leaves it to the broken to reflect a

Beautiful

Reality, where every touch

Marks everything

Intangibly.

 

History results.

 

Antique stores are for those who understand story.

Understand

The value of passing from hand to hand

Because the passed is always present.

 

I

am

a magpie.

 

These black and white plumes know nothing is black and white

Old or new

False or true-

Just an unrelated jigsaw puzzle of half-baked ideas

And unwanted opportunities.

So I say with conviction

This affliction you call an addiction

Is a simple predilection

Towards the omnipresent potential

Bound in all these possibilities.

 

I

am

a magpie.

 

So send me your tired.

Your poor.

Your broken, battered beat bent

Your scratch-and-dent

Your “for sales as is”

 

Send me your casts of cast-asides

Your outcast

Downcast

Downhearted

Down trodden

Trodden under foot

 

Your deject

Reject

Suspect

Defect

And unrepentant few

Who refuse to be corrected.

 

All of them bursting with

Potential energy.

Like in the old grade school textbooks-

 

A child frozen at the top of a swing.

A stone, poised at the height of a fall.

A bird, wings outstretched

 

Ready to take flight.