A Feather to Fly

With the return of spring and life afresh, I have come to realization the blog has collected cobwebs. Time to share some more poetry and photography with the digital world. To start things off, one of my favorite parts of spring, besides the flowers and verdancy returning and life all aflutter, is the birds. And that ageless wonder and wish that we could fly.

A Feather to Fly

I remember finding a feather in a field
looking at the color, the quill, the shape
looking about for a culprit
trying to fly by holding a hand over the naked spot
wondering if it would be embarrassed
I rubbed it against the skin of my cheek
and grinned
thinking about soaring
I went home and read about birds
and that was the first time that tool of flight
became a book marker holding my place

it turned into a scavenger hunt
and slowly I learned more and more about birds
and feathers
and how they fall out and are replaced
by the constant mending hands of time
how fingernails and feathers are both keratin
yet only one can defy gravity
I wished I believed in reincarnation
so I could be a bird one day

but the news said birds again fell from the sky
this new years
and blunt force trama still kills
so maybe its safer on the ground

maybe I just wish I could sing like the fluid flute of a thrush
or take off on a wing

I still pick up feathers when I see them
and I have many books to put them in
where they let my mind soar
and somehow still continue
to give flight

in a way my wish came true
and in a way it and I flew
where neither could before.





(northern flicker feather & weeping cherry flowers)