Birds
A small bird sits on the white gutter,
feathers puffed out against the brisk, fall breeze,
his chest decorated with flecks of brown,
his head streaked with black.
Five or six others, differently decorated, join him,
and as the ochre sun lazily creeps
over the hills, casting its first glowing rays,
they chirp and sing and flit about,
below the window with the peeling white paint.
Yellow sun after yellow sun they come,
at times they bring their forged seeds to munch on
as the sun stretches for its apex.
But, when the sun grows white,
the small bird watches as the others take flight,
flying, gliding, floating away,
away from the looming winter.
He does not leave, for he was born for the cold,
but watching the others go tugs at his little heart,
and as he watches them sail away,
on the early winter breezes,
forlorn, he chirps quietly to himself .
As the solemn winter days pass,
the seeds grow hard to find,
and the little bird keeps singing to himself,
hoping that he may last the winter,
to see the others return come spring.
Sitting on the white gutter, the small bird
empty and forgotten,
looks along the roof
to see seeds scattered about.
He peers inquisitively around,
wondering if the others have come
to stay with him through the long winter months,
but there is no one in sight.
Hesitantly,
he picks up the seeds,
one
by
one.
Past the glass, of the pealing white painted window,
a sudden movement startles him,
and he takes flight,
scattering the remaining seeds.
At each successive sunrise,
he comes to find these seeds,
gathers them in his beak and claws,
then quickly flees,
lest something is watching.
One evening, in the middle of Winter’s deaden heart,
he comes to his gutter, and
on the dark roof,
a glowing ray of, not summer sunlight,
but something rather similar,
leaks out from the window.
Creeping closer,
he sees seeds tumbling from the window’s edge,
bouncing down the slates toward his gutter.
Inquisitively he peers around the frame,
and locks eyes with a strange creature,
a bag of seeds in its flightless wings.
The creature chirps at him, friendly enough,
but his always wary self does not come closer,
instead, he scoops up the seeds,
his eyes never leaving the creature,
and then steals away into the night.
