You lie crumpled at the back of a yard in Lynn Massachusetts
an arrangement of brown fur against green grass
your almost weightless body out of its natural element of air
only one of your delicate wings able to flap
my friend’s daughter notices you
helpless and squirming
her loud shout summons her dad
and they ponder what to do
In the woods 15 miles away
I stand with right arm stretched out
my palm a bowlful of seeds
for these birds I know personally
the one with the loudest voice
the one who always lands on the middle of my forearm
walks down it to my offering
as I pause to answer my ringing phone
I am swarmed by hungry nuthatches
squawking for seeds
they flutter impatiently around me
while I tell my friend to contact Dan’s Wildlife Rescue
25 miles away Beth from Arlington hops into her car
on a rescue mission to take this
small brown creature into her care
Over 800 miles away
smoke from fires in Canada
drifts through the air
to gather over cities in the Northeast United States
air quality warnings issued throughout the area
the sky near me has an eerie haziness
the air in New York City is orange and toxic
worst daily air quality ever recorded there
or anywhere
people dig out their covid masks
and events are cancelled
these fires will happen again
Consider that proverbial butterfly
flapping its wings in the southern hemisphere
sending vibrations that may cause a tornado somewhere else
how does this apply to these scenarios?
—
Jac-Lynn Stark was born in the Bronx and currently lives on the North Shore of Boston where she enjoys pondering life either from near the ocean or in the woods. She has an M.A. in English from Louisiana State University and an M.Ed. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She recently retired from 14 years of teaching English at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston. Her work has been published in Writing by Heart: A Poetry Path to Healing and Self-Discovery, Nimrod International Journal, American Graveyard, calls to end gun violence (an anthology from Read or Green Books), Muddy River Poetry Review, Global Poemic, and others.
