Poem: Thank You to the Birds
Perched on a wire, a feathered ornament prettifying
the blight of power lines
graphing the sky with staves
and you’re the notes.
La-la-la…and a little higher
Laah!
Yah, hah, how you make me la-la-la,
How you make me laugh
With something like childlike, childish, altogether foolish
Joy joy. Oh, joy. That kind.
Thank you, I’ll say it directly. Thank you! I say thank you, plainly.
In a language that every living thing can understand,
and maybe the dead ones, too. The universal being universal.
Thank you, birds. For everything, the parts you can’t understand and the parts I don’t understand and
The parts that everyone understands.
Thank you for all that. And thank you for the smaller mercies, the ones I’m certain
You haven’t planned, unless, in fact, it’s true
that in your avian breast is where
Thank you, God. I’m grateful that you’ve perched upon my composition,
Keeping an eye on the Eden you aerate and fertilize
with the divine obliviousness redolent of eternal grace. Omniscience doesn’t fret.
Make a bet, hurl a threat, compromise the morals of a passionate coquette.
God is cool. And so are you. Ergo…
Here’s a secret that maybe you always knew:
The seed I furnish and the flowers I grow and the stale bread
Slung backhand like a Frisbee to the distant precincts of our little garden sanctuary park –
It’s allegedly for you, Mr. God Sparrow Warbler Wren Dove Towhee Finch Phoebe,
But here’s the secret part:
It’s also for me and all the other earthbound Godheads
Who seek a chirping singing shouting cooing
Confirmation that you really do exist.
Beautiful Michael!