Yesterday, large birds, vultures and golden
eagles, fell out of the sky in Arizona, stricken
down by heat. I once held an eagle owl,
light on my arm despite its impressive size.
With all that armature alone, curved talons,
beak like a scimitar, it should have weighed
my arm down like a stone, and yet it didn’t,
barely enough to bow a branch. I learned
that hollow feathers buoy the birds in flight,
insulate in winter and in summer, shield
the body, pink and diminished underneath
all that striated plumage. Yet this architecture
didn’t help. What had been light fell like
a sodden sandbag to the ground, breaking
windshields, knocking grazing cattle
to their knees. Think of the canaries
miners used to carry caged into the dark.
They tell us what’s to come. But we know
already from experience: where hillsides
dry to brittle brown, flames will rise
like spirits, making their own weather,
taking down the tallest trees. Frowning
at the cloudless sky, we vow to change,
and yet our lives continue as they always
have—morning shower, feeding the cat,
checking the latest news. Immanent disaster
cannot blunt the appetite or quell the thirst,
keep the ants from finding the ripest peaches
in the bowl. Routine won’t help us when the
very air ignites, when birds, the messengers
that go before us, fall from the skies.
This poem first appeared in MacQueen’s Quinterly.
—
Robbi Nester is a retired college educator and author of four books of poetry as well as editor of three anthologies. She hosts and curates two monthly poetry reading series, Verse Virtual Poetry and Open Mic and Words With You. Learn more at her website, http://www.robbinester.net.
