Bird Strike Analysis
by Stephen R. Roberts
A bird strikes the back door window, a pluff of feather on glass.
There’s a little mark on the pane to mark where the pain came from.
The bird’s ok. Though I’m dizzy, confused in thoughts of flying
The bird’s up, wobbling across the concrete. I try to help, stretching
my arms perpendicular to my torso, as if wearing a cloak of feathers.
I flap. The bird watches through the clear sky he just smacked into.
He perceives that unseen accidents may be where or when it ends.
There’s a look in his eye as he tilts his head, and I tilt mine
in the opposite direction to show I understand or have no qualms
or questions about attempts to crash through new dimensions
to reach kitchens or space-time continuums with vivid possibilities.
After all, spring will be here soon or sometime after, and windows
should be foiled or hung with ribbon marking entries to new worlds,
so they can be avoided or prepared for ahead of time without the head
striking something crucial that’s been forgotten - what wings are for?
Such starry vision and revision as the cat comes around the corner,
opening yet another dimension of unintentional reality,
a blue remembering wrapped around how soft the sky once was.
Bio:
Stephen R. Roberts lives on eight acres of Hoosier soil, pretending it to be wilderness. He spends more time now with grandchildren, trees, and poetry, not necessarily in that order. It is the love of these things, along with lariats and other fine examples of rope, that keeps him tying up words, knotting or unknotting poems.
by Stephen R. Roberts
A bird strikes the back door window, a pluff of feather on glass.
There’s a little mark on the pane to mark where the pain came from.
The bird’s ok. Though I’m dizzy, confused in thoughts of flying
The bird’s up, wobbling across the concrete. I try to help, stretching
my arms perpendicular to my torso, as if wearing a cloak of feathers.
I flap. The bird watches through the clear sky he just smacked into.
He perceives that unseen accidents may be where or when it ends.
There’s a look in his eye as he tilts his head, and I tilt mine
in the opposite direction to show I understand or have no qualms
or questions about attempts to crash through new dimensions
to reach kitchens or space-time continuums with vivid possibilities.
After all, spring will be here soon or sometime after, and windows
should be foiled or hung with ribbon marking entries to new worlds,
so they can be avoided or prepared for ahead of time without the head
striking something crucial that’s been forgotten - what wings are for?
Such starry vision and revision as the cat comes around the corner,
opening yet another dimension of unintentional reality,
a blue remembering wrapped around how soft the sky once was.
Bio:
Stephen R. Roberts lives on eight acres of Hoosier soil, pretending it to be wilderness. He spends more time now with grandchildren, trees, and poetry, not necessarily in that order. It is the love of these things, along with lariats and other fine examples of rope, that keeps him tying up words, knotting or unknotting poems.