Poem in Response to Birders: The Central Park Effect

Bird Watching

Cooper hawks perch on posts along a highway 

dead trees piled behind them    

                                                                     

brown pines marked further up the road

Scrub jays land on a backhoe loader

tape-linked peg lines surrounding them

blackened palmetto breaking under their weight

Flocks of turkey buzzards darken an arid field

ivory shards scattered beside them

whitewashed shells speckling black with gray

A red-tail swoops from a backyard fence

blackbirds scattering beneath her

their red wings locked in taloned flight

Another sparrow knocks on a picture window

and falls.