The Thieves of Flight

[davethemoonman]

In the baked dirt,
An injured bird breaks its final note.

I have heard the sounds of airborne creatures dying.
The pitiful whippoorwill disappearing in the brush at the edge of the valley,
The tendons under its primaries snapped in a cat fight,
Now foundering on the forest floor,
Gradual.

This is the past. It is an unforseen feeding.

I patch the wing;
The creature’s buried eye beholds my fumbling hands
And takes its trouble calmly. Not a peep.
Standing, scouring for a safer respite for the trembling, feathered charge,
The bird balks at my clumsy boot
Conscientiously placed upon the base of its spine.

A memory shrieks. For a moment, all is still,
The swirl of the glen-ridden bird sending my careless step into history.

So it is written.

We are the thieves of flight. Broken
     backs hit the ground in our wake.
     The air rises, the look in the bird’s eye devours. We are caught
     within the folds of its wings.