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summer_jackelBirds
If you were a bird, I think you would be
among the small, light perchers,
fleet and wary-eyed, half-hidden in the brambles.
Perhaps here and there flashing a shock of immoderate color,
red or blue or yellow blazing from your back, your breast,
beneath your wing.
Quick little ache of unexpected beauty.
If I was a bird, I think I would like to be a duck.
Although I would always envy the osprey’s mad grace;
at home in shallow waters, dabbling my bill in soft mud
with the sun mottling sleek, oiled feathers.
The water cold and perfect and delicious all around me.
Ducks are happy.
Their deaths quick, their lives full of moving rivers
Brief explosions of flight and web-footed, dirty joy.
Leave me amongst the weeds and bugs and rushes
With songbirds flitting in the branches all around.
If you were a bird, I think you would be
among the small, light perchers,
fleet and wary-eyed, half-hidden in the brambles.
Perhaps here and there flashing a shock of immoderate color,
red or blue or yellow blazing from your back, your breast,
beneath your wing.
Quick little ache of unexpected beauty.
If I was a bird, I think I would like to be a duck.
Although I would always envy the osprey’s mad grace;
at home in shallow waters, dabbling my bill in soft mud
with the sun mottling sleek, oiled feathers.
The water cold and perfect and delicious all around me.
Ducks are happy.
Their deaths quick, their lives full of moving rivers
Brief explosions of flight and web-footed, dirty joy.
Leave me amongst the weeds and bugs and rushes
With songbirds flitting in the branches all around.
