I am standing at a bank of windows
looking out over an empty parking lot
when two stately sandhill cranes step
into view. They pause to inspect
winter-dried weeds pushing through
a crack before moving on.
They’re in no hurry, planting
stick-like claws firmly
on hard blacktop and
stopping occasionally to tilt
their open beaks skyward
in raucous conversation, faintly
heard behind my wall of glass.
They appear not to mind treading
on unnatural asphalt, and the massive
steel and glass building I watch from
does not intimidate. Neither do
those odd wingless creatures with
forward-bending knees and tree-like legs
who brought them
to the brink of extinction—and back.
Crane world now enfolds our own.
—
CJ Muchhala’s work has been published in New Poetry from the Midwest and other anthologies, in print and on-line journals including Gyroscope Review, WordPeace and Thimble, displayed regionally in collaborative art/poetry exhibits and nominated for the Best of the Net and twice for the Pushcart Prize.
