False Division

Walking the false division
between the wild hawk
and the industrial birds
of the world.

The hawk
is natural; so are
the factory birds; they
are all one, subsisting

wherever they can do
all they do; birds
below the high tension wires
leading into town

and birds above the wires,
leading
out of town
to a vast land.

I walk between them,
marveling; they don’t
seem to worry, do they?
Perhaps they do. Perhaps

it’s a mystery
to them as well
and they’re just getting by
on instinct and brute

finesse; their feathers at least
align stupendously well,
even when ruffled by a hand,
even when they are found

on the ground, dead
or dying — even after
they start to fall apart.
I find them on the ground

and am startled to see them
fading, fading away
into soil. But it’s the way
of things, after all;

it all fades into soil
and my memory fights that —
preferring to think
of a circling redtail above

and industrious sparrows below,
grubbing in the polluted dirt
by the power plant; and I,
torn between them, stand there

and stare for a moment
in balance, pausing in
one thought of crisis
to think: where do I fit?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
onward,
T