Always I'm the one slightly slighted, he said. But there is no why. Desire is one thing. The fall of events another. Take migrating birds, black inkspots against sky. You navigate while I snap pictures. Wrens go south, flapping, light as leaf tissue. No self-pity, they just go, giving up their nests, with rose-pink bitterroot hanging down -- go, go, go -- like the girl said that time in Italy, go, go go -- and if you could eat, say, cherries in midair or eat spiders, dig up earthworms and shit from a telephone pole, you too would have no time for self-pity, no time to ask yourself why you get the cold shoulder. You'd just go, pecking at tree bark when you could, eating a lot of stuff that looks back at you. To avoid death, you'd go in cold weather to stay warm, stopping, say, in some ash tree to catch your breath. Then go on, doing what comes naturally on a long-distance flight. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AUTUMN by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE GHOSTS OF THE BUFFALOES by NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY ANIMAL CRACKERS by CHRISTOPHER DARLINGTON MORLEY A SONG: REVENGE AGAINST CYNTHIA by PHILIP AYRES A KISS - BY MISTAKE by JOEL BENTON THE FOUR SEASONS OF THE YEAR by ANNE BRADSTREET |