Kingfisher
Kingfisher –
Gray-crowned, poised on a wire –
Waits a moment
Then plunges to desire –
Like an arrow in the rising sun.
While a seed
Or a feather in the wind
Wanders this way
And that.
Never to its own end.
One eye closed against the sun,
I wait for September.
See two golden leaves,
And in moonlit insomnia
Listen, impatient,
For the owls’ conversation.
Broken in the twilight
That bends before dawn,
Communing with cardinals,
Acknowledging loss –
Misheard,
Miscued.
And I would go further,
If I could,
Away from voices –
Faces –
All the eyes that know too much.
I watched you sing
In late summer’s glow –
So many years gone now.
And avoiding sly spiders
Who weave webs
Against the light,
Searched out kinder eyes –
Soft,
Reflective,
And refracting the glow.
But fire crept among them.
So I stumbled to the river edge.
Moths in the streetlight –
I could hear their cries,
And like them I looped in blind flight,
And knew the destined
Would leave me
Glowing embers, at best.
Or just ashes
To be scattered
Like those seeds,
Again,
In the wind.
