Always enough

On their walk home after school,
the middle school kids foraged among green ankles
in a patch of sour grass,
Don't swallow-Just chew, says the boy with braces
who spotted the little cache and reported it.

A lone girl sits criss cross applesauce
on the sidewalk in the shade of a pepper tree,
she wipes her brow, a paperback book splayed
in her lap.
She has never heard of a broken spine.
She doesn't look up-her ride must be late.

At the bus stop
a  stubbled man asks a teen
for the Time,
then asks the youth why he is out early,

I go to the Academy.
I have to go to work, he
explains.
How I remember those days,
retorts gruff with derisive smirk
Not the same, I'm sure,
the man reassures-
Academy.
Is this bus always late?

A crow hops next to the bench
looking sideways
every so often, adjusting his position
on cracking a tough nut,
or breaking a date.

Either way they look
too little
too late.



Painting by Boris Kustodiev (1911) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Self-driven

Bipeds-we have walked
with our soles touching the earth
until grew tired and found
limits to how far we can make it
in a day-
and just how much, or little
one man may carry this way

until we tamed
double duty quadrupeds
who lightened the load
a little

when we saw the wild steed gallop
our fancies flew and we felt
there is a better way-
so we broke them and started over,
land-locked and loaded on beasts
this feast lasted longer than a day.

It was not long, remember when
Four legs was not enough,
we wanted wings
but got stuck spinning our wheels.

We hatched plans to get there faster
than the crow flies-
ill-suited for the skies
we want back to fire.

Today we fly anywhere,
drive up to the edge of lands end
teeter in between atmospheres
propelling people mindlessly about
still holding the mules lead

our soles ungrounded.

We needed directions more than license.

Now, how to get around
the fear
of not being in control
of cruising and steering and nearing no
better ways
of moving forward
without needing to know
how we arrived or when we will be
delivered.

Painting By Mary Stevenson Cassatt, American, 1844 - 1926 (1844 - 1926) – Artist/Maker (American) Born in Alleghney City, Pennsylvania, United States. Dead in Le Mesnil-Théribus, France. Details of artist on Google Art Project [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Cockcrow of the crows and a cockatoo

There are city dwelling birds

that are not your common stool pigeons.

The ravens occupy the east

side of the tracks.

The gulls guard the windy west.

On garbage day they all rise early

not for worms in the green box holes-

they know the small fries

are at the bottom of paper bags.

We had a murder

before our pine tree was felled

from illness. Yet, like serial flyers,

they moved to another pine,

preferring needles and sap

to the plethora of palms;

mexican fan, kintia, canary, 

the King and Queen and the Phoenix.

The ravens also get dates,

taking them out to 

happening intersections

and drop them so they 

get cracked by cars,
rolling through

while the fair gulls glide along

bellies filled with stale soft bread-

And I remember good old Fred.

Taken in and taught by those

crows

how to

blend in seamlessly-though he's a cockatoo.

They fly as one flock

rise and cockcrow,

the gulls sneer and squawk.

The city birds are not blind

deaf or dumb, 

winged with wayward choice

The murder

doesn't mind

one more white bird

or a cock or two. 

Image By Liftarn (Traced from Image:Odin's ravens right.PNG) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.