The Secret Lives Of Birds

Do not love the oriole.

She will flutter and charm in a charismatic display;

Then, when all of your dreams have turned to orange,

She will do the same over an old bit of string.



The water pipit favors the stark beauty of rocky beach or tundra.

She is plain but hardy, and will find a way through and say nothing

When you fuck up the way you do;

She sometimes lays her eggs on golf courses--

Do not stupidly try to drive them or sink them, because then you will discover

They are the thing she loves, more than you.



You can't count on a cedar waxwing.

She will include you and also several of her friends,

Passing a ripe cherry from beak to beak, down the branch, until every face is sweet and red.

You'll forget yourself with happiness and the summer will be one long delicious picnic of plenty;

Did you think the red markings at her wing tips were simple accents?

They are her album, of you, and another, and another,

All abandoned, like dreams upon waking--

Suddenly and entirely,

When all the fruit is gone.



The jay can scatter smaller birds from the feeder

By mimicking the cry of the red tailed hawk.

She takes what she will, burying--and forgetting--a great many prizes;

Entire forests spring from her bold thievery.

Yet, she always seems to be moving on.

Despite her beauty, brass, and moxie,

Tranquility is never hers, and if you love her,

It will elude you, too.



And me?

I am fascinated with them all.

Cardinals,

Grackles,

Phoebes,

Blackbirds--

I am the song they did not know they knew,

And I am the rapt and admiring listener;

I am the silent sky in love with their wing beats and the music that cannot be expressed

Without them.

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