Birds, They Tell Us

Are not allowed in poetry anymore,

with their mouths full of fish, gullets

working overtime. Pelicans,

those acrobats of the air, oh so done

with them, they say. Give us

your open wounds, blood flowing.

Give us your heartache, cloaked in skin

fabric, poised on a knife’s edge, not that

old trope of bird belly cut open

and stuffed full of plastic, or the one

where they cut the bill right off the pelican

and left it starving, unable

to call out.

Yeah, you cried. Get over it.

No metaphors but seams

of red running liquid, no truths

but sorrow from your glued tight mouth.

Your own dead child,

No birds. We’ve had it up to here

with red wing blackbirds

nightingales & swallows oh my god.

Especially the long legged

egret, most over-worked

of birds, mouth

full of flipping fish.

Hardest working bird

no longer dependent on poets’

handouts.

What of the turkey vulture, proud

on the gable, then

lifting off

helicopter like.

Velociraptor like,

in search of someone else’s

lost prey, eagle-eyed

as an eagle

and twice as smart.

Birds, they tell us

all we need to know

if we listen

to their warbling song

hesitant and mocking all

at the same time.

I gather you my darlings, not

to kill you but to praise you.

My power line sitters,

my road-kill cleaners,

my stalk legged fish stabbers,

my warblers, impressionists,

raucous cawers, murmuring.

Murmuration makers.

Mockers, night flyers, hole drilling,

hippo cleaning,

crocodile flossing.

Useful ubiquitous

winged creatures.

I praise you, pray

to you, angels of

our daily life, even the cynical

poetry editor

on his bed of words, buried

in words,

cannot avoid

your insistent flapping and pecking

outside his shut tight window

made only of sand

and ash.