The Birds

Stay away from it— they memorize faces make plans and communicate vengeance throughout their legions. Umbrella people, too, with black balloons pooling onto everything, looming as if they can avoid…

The flight of birds, one bird of one species crossing a flock swirling, breathing together with their wings, a musical instrument of movement based on air—what does that mean to…

I couldn’t remember if I had ever held a creature in my hands as it took its last breath. Here was this broken bird, legs twitching and tiny eyes filled…

I recorded birds in the studio on the day my wife left me.  The set-up: a single condenser mic attached to a feeder.  Newspaper on the floor to eliminate the…

The drive home that December evening was the first time in five weeks Mom had been outside a two mile radius of Dad’s hospital room. Headlights from passing cars briefly…

1. Cardinal At first glance there’s nothing improbable here. A girl’s vision though the kitchen window: red bird perched on a fence post. Pope Francis carries a single green frond,…

The day there she thought it was over, the day she did not hear from him but could not reach out because her mouth was tied to itself, it was…

winter migration bare trees sprout black feathers and chatter Navy Blue Angels ~ syncopated flight at dusk over bird island birds hop in grass on broken bleached weeds feeders abandoned…

1. the condor behind steel bars in the city red eyed eating dreams as people pass i pray to her softly show her my golden keys say now you’re flying…

An early morning ray of sunlight pushed through the clouds and climbed the foremast platform a centimeter at a time. Above sat the admiral’s bridge, and above that, the navigating…

He doesn’t want a damn thing from the world. That’s why he’s in the garage hunched over his workbench. It isn’t a real workbench but a small desk taken from…

Oh superstitious schoolboy pacing your classroom of boorish windows and trick-lever suns. Have you lost count of the days? Prisoner of someone’s war. Dance, dance pretty bird make your countrymen…

father’s ___________ withers a tree to its narrative of rings & becomes his answer. blackbird – ready to listen for a dad who would precede him in nest &, yet,…

“Too many deer, wild pigs, raccoons and beavers can be almost as bad for the animals as too few. This is why communities across the country find themselves forced to…