by James Brush
Tag: birds nobody loves
Three o’clock in the afternoon,
central Texas summer day,
over a hundred degrees out.
I know there will be no birds,
nothing but grackles and vultures.
I still go out, and I’m not surprised.
Only grackles seem to like this heat.
The other birds hold still like
knots in the trees, silent waiting for dusk,
trying to keep their colors from melting
into the brown grass and faded leaves.
Overhead a few vultures soar on
steady outstretched wings,
folding sky and letting it move
around and over them as they ride
thermals up to more temperate
atmospheric zones. Meanwhile,
the grackles and I enjoy the heat
until the other birds begin to stir
and it’s time for me to go home.
One of my vulture-related haiku is up over at tinywords today as part of Issue 10.1. Go check it out and have a look around while you’re there. There are lots of great haiku and micro-poems presented on a beautifully designed site.
I didn’t hear a word the priest said,
but I saw the vultures circling
rising
in the air above the lake
outside the windows
beyond the altar.
Things looked clearer out there,
and it made perfect sense to see
God skipping church that day
just to ride thermals with the angels.
—
This isn’t exactly a NaPoWriMo poem. It’s one I wrote almost a year ago, but I decided to come back to it and do some reworking. For one I wrote today, you’ll have to visit a gnarled oak for my daily napowrimo micro-poem.
The grackles opened
Like gates in the trees
Shadow birds, eyes glistening
You could almost imagine
These noisy shades
Abandoning tangible birds,
Parking lots and steel dumpsters
In their odyssey through
Suburban woods,
Clacking and creaking
Like machines or clocks
Ticking away the last
Hoarse seconds of winter.