April Poetry | Birds

BIRDS

by Jens Kruse

I

When we first moved
to Orcas Island
I was thrilled
by birds at the extremes:
the bald eagles
wheeling around each other
during mating season,
riding the thermals
during the summer;
and maybe my delight
was even greater
to greet
the rufus humming birds
arriving from Mexico,
sparring above my deck
for sole possession
of feeders and females.
But later I found pleasure
between the extremes:
with Northern flickers,
hairy woodpeckers,
Steller’s jays,
junkos,
chestnut-backed chickadees.

II

And all that time
we had a bird
inside our house:
Walter
the lovebird,
Agapornis roseicollis —
named by our son
after Walt Whitman —
with whom we would drive
back and forth across the country,
3000 miles
between Wellesley, MA
and Eastsound, WA.
I wrote mock epics
about him
crossing the country
in our silver chariot:
one modeled on the Odyssey,
one modeled on the Iliad.
(One of these days I am going
to publish them.)
Once he had completed
his Odyssey
he would fly
around his house
and sit on the window sill
trying to figure out
whether he should be afraid
of the hairy woodpecker,
or how he could communicate
with the rufus hummingbird.

III

But now that Walter
has died
I focus on the
outside birds again:
there is much more
I need to learn about
the birds around my perch
at 800 feet.
Occasionally ravens come by
and have many things to say.
Not to me,
but I’d still like
to understand what
they say to each other.
And then,
at sea level,
there are the crows of Eastsound,
40 or 50 of them,
walking herky-jerky,
like wind-up toys,
hopping near Suzie’s barbershop,
flying into the trees near Enzo’s Café.
On Crescent Beach
they go about their business,
without regard to the gulls,
without regard to us,
although I am sure
they have things to say
about us all the time,
but only to each other.

© Jens Kruse