Revelations

He is one of the beautiful birds, raucous

but beautiful, with his hues of blue

and white and gray and black, his head tufted

and his call sharp, loud and shrill in the morning

hours around the feeders, bullying off the smaller

birds to gorge himself and his mates on the sunflower

seeds we provide for them all, the small ones flickering in,

grabbing a seed, and flickering away under watchful eyes;

 

There were six of them; now there are five:

 

one lone bird ground feeding, undisturbed, and a small dog,

mine, let loose, onto the chase, and he ran off, not flew, but ran

into the brush, a clean escape, running, walking fast, as he spent

the rest of the day, grounded, undisturbed, yet fearful, cautious,

walking, into the early evening … and the next morning, too, lacking

signs of injury, no dazed look, glazed look of a closed window

encounter, reflecting the outside, no broken wing, no signs of it,

just not flying, no obvious distress … one lone bird …

 

just a body and a pile of leaves, hues of blue and white,

gray and black, silenced and still amidst green turned to gold

and rust, muted colors, beautiful even in his passing, touching

our lives, strangers here in the wild, nature’s mysteries,

nature’s way revealed to us here in our own back yard.