We humans have just learned to talk, just now
The fractured speech falls into place, just how
You might imagine it happening – just now
The tongue-tying cords relax and let words spill,
Fly up, fly out, soar away, glide down
Like wounded quail
Pecos! Chicago! Chicago! Chicago!
Neat and modest, arrayed in gray,
Clothed in feather flannel seed scratching
Suits even of a Sunday, scratching seeds
On Sunday.
We have been here before, three hundred
In the back yard, on the roof, in the old
Blue spruce lining the driveway
On their last legs. Building desperate
Nests in the arbor vitae along
The abandoned street.
We quail have just learned speech,
What should we say just now, just how,
Just like you might imagine it happening
Just now as the world spun around,
Flipped over again.
Author: Duncan MacNae
Exiled Gael, scion of the Dust Bowl, dweller within Divine Grace, admirer of mountains, I have made my peace with trout and the starlings. Looking for a river and healing trees.
duncanmacduncan5@gmail.com
View all posts by Duncan MacNae
duncanmac.blog 