#NaPoWriMo Entry #10: “Feather Skies”

Hooray for poems about birds!  Nature rocks.

Today’s poem was inspired by the following:

The warbling Northern Mockingbird
chirps a stranger’s tune,
acid words spilling from his beak:
“HUMAN…Human…human…safe!”

Others announce my arrival in turn,
turning their beaks to the side
so their blackberry eyes
can see the world beneath their wings.
“human…Human…HUMAN!”
I watch them, curious at their undying attention,
like the reverse end of a lover’s coin.
“Human…human…safe!”

Who am I to these air sirens?
Who do I become in their eyes?
“Move away…Move away…Move away now…”
There, the mother hen clucking her little orders;
There, the little whisper of the Earth mother
serenading the world with wild harmonies.
“human…Human…HUMAN!”

I look in their beads of ethereal visions
and see myself reflected as if by an ocean.
“Human…human…safe!”
And in that moment, I see myself,
the bird man waiting to fly
on skies of upturned buckets,
toes wriggling in the fog where feathers play.