Dammit, Sherman, now I've got to go off & try to write that poem about the birds that inhabited the upper reaches of the U of Illinois library in Urbana when I was there! You'd have thought it was an atrium. Presumably, they were there for enlightenment, not just to be near fellow flyers. FYI, my mother had a great phobia of birds.
Yes., sometimes in Home Depot too. And I never know whether they're stuck or thrilled to be beyond getting removed. I had a friend who worked in Costco and said the birds were a sanitary issue no one could figure out how to address.
Perhaps the bird was an invasive species, seeking to return to his ancestral homelands. Perhaps he found a way into the cargo hold of a jumbo jet and made it to what should have been his home, if not for the intervention of humans.
I wonder if the birds there understood him, with his American- accented song. Did he still feel like an outsider?
Did he land instead in a different country, to continue his invasive heritage? Maybe he only grew up with invasive species and wanted to see what it was like to be bad-ass like them?
OR, did he get to the airport and decide that his life here wasn't so bad, but he had made such a big deal of leaving and had a blowout goodbye party with his friends and so couldn't return to them? If he wasn't a chicken, would he be angry about being accused of 'chickening out'?
"SO FINE . . . " I like how the bird is flying, light as a bird, so to speak, all around, in what seems from the picture to be bright and open space (yet really closed), and then we're led to the dark, heavy closing, but still "radiant."
Small, radiant, and probably doomed... I can relate.
A few days after you posted this, I was in an airport and a bird flew over me. I wonder how often the end up in airports?
Nailed it!
Thank you, Sir. Juxtaposition is my middle name . . .
Dammit, Sherman, now I've got to go off & try to write that poem about the birds that inhabited the upper reaches of the U of Illinois library in Urbana when I was there! You'd have thought it was an atrium. Presumably, they were there for enlightenment, not just to be near fellow flyers. FYI, my mother had a great phobia of birds.
Thanks. It reminds me of the disaster movie 2012 starring John Cusack whom I have personally alerted to geoengineering. https://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/geoengineering-watch-global-alert-news-july-24-2021-311/#comment-1855244
I always wonder why birds will seldom fly down to escape, I suppose it's because they have always had the sky to do so.
This brings to mind the movie, Truman.
Yes., sometimes in Home Depot too. And I never know whether they're stuck or thrilled to be beyond getting removed. I had a friend who worked in Costco and said the birds were a sanitary issue no one could figure out how to address.
Have spent a great deal of time in the Detroit Metro airport!! Wonderful poem!!!
I love the couplets with perfectly suited slant rhyme to what I read as loss and and even hope in the last couplet of radiance and doom.
Perhaps the bird was an invasive species, seeking to return to his ancestral homelands. Perhaps he found a way into the cargo hold of a jumbo jet and made it to what should have been his home, if not for the intervention of humans.
I wonder if the birds there understood him, with his American- accented song. Did he still feel like an outsider?
Did he land instead in a different country, to continue his invasive heritage? Maybe he only grew up with invasive species and wanted to see what it was like to be bad-ass like them?
OR, did he get to the airport and decide that his life here wasn't so bad, but he had made such a big deal of leaving and had a blowout goodbye party with his friends and so couldn't return to them? If he wasn't a chicken, would he be angry about being accused of 'chickening out'?
"SO FINE . . . " I like how the bird is flying, light as a bird, so to speak, all around, in what seems from the picture to be bright and open space (yet really closed), and then we're led to the dark, heavy closing, but still "radiant."
and your images of your airport abbot will stay with me, I'm sure for as many
years. I sometimes see sparrows in the Costco rafters and try to figure whether they're living there with purpose or are also doomed.
Good stuff. The stuff of dreams.
Beautiful piece! I love watching and following anyone who copes better than I.