Birds

The scheming magpies’ plan must’ve worked;
summer failed to arrive in this grey and spiraling urbanity.
Anchorage feels naked, empty
without the carpet of ice and snow crunching below.
I was aware of it when lupines and wild roses
heralded the arrival of what should have been June.
I was keenly aware of the missing white when
flowers conceded, accepting the cruelty of warmthlessness.
This city is wet now, as the great lion arrives.
Saddened by this dreary failure, the cat weeps,
drizzles pulling themselves from a sky
that has married itself with concrete.
The world darkens, turning grey and distant.
All hope escapes of summer, of warmth.
It’ll return to Alaska now, familiar cold eventually driving
away those smaller birds and welcoming the giant cousins,
the benevolent and ominous ravens, keepers of my soul.
In the merriment of an metropolitan buffet,
they’ll shoo the clouds, revealing the sun,
still hanging where they’d first placed it.

7.27.2008

What do I think of this poem? I almost feel like I was trying too hard. I’m still blocked and the words are not coming in waves. They take effort, like these, to release. I nearly like it, but may need to scrap an animal reference.

Featured Image Art: vintage illustration of a magpie

1 Comment

  1. I liked it..but there were a few animal references…but I didn’t realize it until you said something…

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