The Innisfree Poetry Journal
www.innisfreepoetry.org
by Doris Brody
REALITY CHECK That’s what it is, you know, this rising in early dawn, listening for calls, fragments of song, looking at dark shapes in the gray light, this need to see into fog, this trying to find what you’ve seen in the past, this checking to see if it’s there, still there, this needing to know, this obsession that starts with the color of dawn. And the mist does lift⎯not always, but often. And the sun does rise and day brightens. The shapes become clear, tanagers, trogons, and toucans appear. The colors of feathers grow brighter than all imitations, brighter than you can imagine⎯sun, feathers, eye all real. It is checking the real, this obsession that burns with the color of feathers.
DON’T BE GREEDY, FATHER SAID “Don’t pick armloads of daisies, asters, goldenrod, Queen Anne’s lace, or Joe Pye weed. If you leave them, the meadow blooms again. Don’t pick even one trillium, or the whole plant dies.” Each spring and into summer, I watch my hummingbirds, aerial acrobats, metallic green and, then, in sunlight, the iridescent ruby flash. Bird, but not a bird, a little bigger than a bee. Each spring and into summer, I listen as my thrush fills my valley with his song, not just birdsong but music, rolling, pealing, lifting from early morning until dusk, he sings for me, for me. I no longer strip wild meadows, but each spring and into summer, I cannot get enough of hummingbirds and thrushes. Father, I have failed. I lust.
Copyright 2006-2012 by Cook Communication
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