Michelle Castleberry
Ode to Caroll Spinney
Big Bird ambles into the street,
the first one you know by name.
He is your friend, you know this
by how happy he is to see you,
how he smiles.
Or seems to smile as he talks to you.
He acquaints you with the bricks that create
the brownstone of this universe.
You meet letters and numbers
and now they are your friends.
Today was brought to you by the letter F
for Feather and Friend and Fun.
All of them yellow, all of them him.
Big Bird cares for you.
Actually Caroll Spinney cares for you
maybe even more than Frank Oz,
who hated performing in full-body characters.
Give him kneepads and Animal, any day.
Anything but the suit.
Caroll Spinney made Big Bird
sing and dance and even skate.
For you.
For you, he held his right hand
up like a periscope in the beak.
(Amateurs flap the hand like wings.
Only the thumb is supposed to move like a jaw.)
Big Bird's head weighs four pounds.
For you, he wore an electric bra
fitted with a 1 1/2" tv monitor
and crooked his neck to check
his work from inside the hot yellow cage.
Maybe this is a sad knowledge,
brought to you by the letter S
for Sore and Sacrifice. But settle back, kids.
Watch your yellow friend again.
This was only the first time
that someone loved you
and made it look easy.
Big Bird ambles into the street,
the first one you know by name.
He is your friend, you know this
by how happy he is to see you,
how he smiles.
Or seems to smile as he talks to you.
He acquaints you with the bricks that create
the brownstone of this universe.
You meet letters and numbers
and now they are your friends.
Today was brought to you by the letter F
for Feather and Friend and Fun.
All of them yellow, all of them him.
Big Bird cares for you.
Actually Caroll Spinney cares for you
maybe even more than Frank Oz,
who hated performing in full-body characters.
Give him kneepads and Animal, any day.
Anything but the suit.
Caroll Spinney made Big Bird
sing and dance and even skate.
For you.
For you, he held his right hand
up like a periscope in the beak.
(Amateurs flap the hand like wings.
Only the thumb is supposed to move like a jaw.)
Big Bird's head weighs four pounds.
For you, he wore an electric bra
fitted with a 1 1/2" tv monitor
and crooked his neck to check
his work from inside the hot yellow cage.
Maybe this is a sad knowledge,
brought to you by the letter S
for Sore and Sacrifice. But settle back, kids.
Watch your yellow friend again.
This was only the first time
that someone loved you
and made it look easy.
Michelle Castleberry is a social worker and poet living in northeast Georgia. Her first book is Dissecting the Angel and Other Poems. She is also a writer with Flying Mule Films, working on a musical/horror/lyrical/creature film called I Bed the Dead.
