Some of our deaths were birds of prey
Owl, eagle, falcon, vulture
Or, if you were lucky, something tropical or a bird of paradise
with plumage the color of fireworks
Rarer still were the songbirds
chickadee, sparrow, blue bird
Less like an alarm clock
more like an appendage
the birds were with us everywhere we went
and so we made space for them to perch
In the office, at the breakfast table, on the subway
It wasn't a world ever numb to Death
Imagine a crowd of strangers,
dull grey condors and buzzards perched on each shoulder
and among them, one parrot with bright red and blue
feathers bright like oil on water
bright like a holiday
Imagine the long walk home through the rice paddies
the sudden startling flock of magpies
a hundred at once all flying homeward
which is to say away and upward
Imagine a quiet bus ride
the city, a monotonous forest of grey and tan
the rain, a television static
maybe you'd forget about your bird for a moment
and then you hear it
the blessed whistling of a rare songbird
something beautiful and easy to wound
What would you whisper to your bird, then?
What of you would you train it to carry on its last flight
away and upward?
So pissed I didn't come up with this concept
ReplyDelete