Bouquet
Earlier,
before day, before day was made
day,
I raised the shade to arrange
the
bouquet of the birds’ of prey
feathers. Alert in an barren bonsai
pot
they reach easily east & to east’s
opposite. & the smaller feathers barely scale
the
rim. I’ll confess I don’t know all
their
names, but some, of course: crow;
broad
tail hawk; turkey. Eagle. & the one
lone
white, from my daughter’s costume
when
she was an attending pre-K
angel
at Jesus’ manger. I thought: alive,
all
these birds are solitary. I thought:
loosing
to
lose one feather of the thousands they fly
with,
this one isn’t going to be
missed,
though if it still
had
a consciousness it might miss: the wind,
the
beak preening, the fanning out, fanning
in,
the light, the coming on of dark
when
the shade is after being
raised
all day slowly drawn down
to
the tips of the shaft and vane waiting maybe
for
a February draught to resurrect the barbs
where
some are split, where some were dried
wet
& caked yet, & some, the angel one flanked
by
all the rest, hide behind the falcon
&
the count them:
one, two, three
crow
