This afternoon the vulture couple
sit stoically on the limbs
of the long dead tree in the preserve.
The rain was torrential
as we watched from the dry
confines of our home, they
stood soaked to the feathers
with nowhere to hide, knowing
they couldn’t out fly or out climb
the purging clouds, so they set
soaking wet and stared at us.
And then I knew, just looking
at them, that while I felt sorry
for them perched in a downpour
they felt the same for us, we
unable to know the joy of flight.
I am struggling to understand
just who is the target market
with a thirty piece at
of rubber ducks for the bath
that Amazon wants to sell me.
I did have a rubber ducky
for the bath when I was a child
but he was singular, and when
he partially cracked and drowned
I buried him in the backyard
and vowed never to own
waterfowl again, rubber or real.
And a 30 pack, I mean
does Amazon assume that I
have some disorder that would
require 30 ducks in a tub,
and do they all quack in Chinese
and all at once, no doubt making
taking a bath an unbearable task?
If birds could write, which bird
would write like which author.
The Osprey would clearly be Hemingway
knowing the sea, but with no need for an old man.
The common Gallinule might become
Billy Collins, an easy laugh and always entertaining.
The crows could be so many writers
attending workshops, all still looking
for a voice to express themselves without
causing their audience to turn away.
The great egret could well be Alice Munro
creating beauty without need for intensity
her audience content to watching her do little
and the cattle egret would be David Sedaris
mining that the detritus of the world for that
short, ever pithy humorous twist.
The Sandhill Crane, Murakami
always with a strange tale, and
as are all cranes, ever so Japanese.
A violinist can
look at an Amati
or a Guarnieri
and hear a concerto.
A birder hears
the call of the songbird
and can describe
the beauty of her plumage.
A skilled photographer
looks through the viewfinder
and tells a complete story
with one press of the shutter button.
But it is the poet
alone, staring at a blank page,
who spills onto it joy and sadness,
tears and elation, and his blood.
From watching them in flight
I know that great egrets fly
with their hinge neck folded in
while Sandhill cranes extend theirs.
By listening carefully, I know
the cry of the male limpkin, his lower
than his female partner, while
the cry of the hawk only creates fear
in those who might be its prey, and
the male Cardinal shows
infinite patience calling out
for a mate who never arrives.
I can see and hear all of these
but I cannot begin to tell you why
for when I asked the birds, all
replied with a variation on
“that’s just the way things are,
but why do you want to know?”
He was the smallest, that
is what drew you to him.
Still, he had a certain bravado
a serious strut to his walk.
Perhaps it was because
his father was there, a protector
in part, in another part a challenge.
He knew his mother was looking
so it became a matter of pride.
He could imagine himself
a father one day, his own children
trailing behind him threatening
to break away, knowing full well
they were not ready yet, needed
him for protection from
the always present predators.
That was life in the wetland
for most wading birds,
the only life he knew or wanted.
We are jealous of trees,
anchored as we are
to a grasping earth,
able to tear free only
momentarily or with
the help of machines,
for trees can approach
the clouds, swaddle
all manner of birds,
and, we are certain,
know heaven more
intimately than we can.
And trees are jealous
of birds, able to fly
well above their highest
branches, knowing
the true blue of the sky
and the verdant base
from which they took flight.
Just for the fun of it I asked ChatGPT to write a poem on this topic. Here is its effort:
In envy we gaze upon the sky, Watching birds soar with such grace and ease, Their wings taking them to places high, Leaving us on the ground to freeze.
We long to join them in their flight, To feel the wind beneath our wings, To escape the troubles of our plight, And spread our arms to feel the fling.
But alas, we are not meant to fly, Our feet firmly planted on the earth, While birds glide through the clouds on high, Showing us the true meaning of worth.
We may be jealous of their freedom, But let us not forget our own, For we have the ability to dream, And make our own paths to be shown.
So let us not dwell on jealousy, For we too have our own unique gifts, Let us embrace our humanity, And find joy in the life we’re given
It is that moment when the moon
is a glaring crescent,
slowly engulfed by
the impending night—
when the few clouds give out
their fading glow
in the jaundiced light
of the sodium arc street lamp.
It nestles the curb—at first a small bird—
when touched, a twisted piece of root.
I want to walk into the weed-strewn
aging cemetery, stand in the shadow
of the expressway, peel
the uncut grass from around her headstone.
I remember
her arthritic hands clutching mine,
in her dark, morgueish apartment, smelling
of vinyl camphor borsht.
I saw her last in a hospital bed
where they catalog and store
those awaiting death, stared
at the well-tubed skeleton
barely indenting starched white sheets.
She smiled wanly and whispershouted
my name—I held my ground
unable to cross the river of years
unwilling to touch
her outstretched hand. She had
no face then, no face now, only
an even fainter smell of age
of camphor of lilac of must.
Next to the polished headstone
lies a small, twisted root.
I wish it were a bird
I could place gently
on the lowest branch of the old maple
that oversees her slow departure.
First published in Rattle #23, Spring 2005
Life ought be little more than
arrhythmic motion, a path
we only want to straighten,
to smooth, its natural, necessary
twists and bumps somehow,
for we always see them as
impediments not moments
of joyous indecision where
there are no wrong choices
for each choice unfolds
a new path never trodden,
never imagined or foreseen.
A bird flies to where it needs
to be, but for most that are
not migrating, that place
isn’t known until arrival and
even then, save for nesting,
it is the right place only for
a day, a week, a month
or perhaps only a moment,
for a bird knows only this
moment and this until
there are no more moments.
As we sit
in the great metal tube
we imagine ourselves
birds awaiting the freedom
only the sky offers.
The clouds reach down
swaddling us and we
realize that we have
yet to fledge, likely
never will do so.
Peering out the small
window, the earth shrinks
and grows large again,
and as we step out,
the birds look at us
and feel only pity.
an old writer and his words 