It’s hard to be a bird
Do what you were born to do
Knowing no one’s
Gonna come back
Flying through the trees
To feed you your grub
Like in the olden days
When all you wanted
Was to open that big beak of yours,
A hundred times opened and closed,
A shameless thing.
Now no more sounds of here I come,
Your mama, way too tired
With a flutter of signifying wings
To keep up the good work,
Knew you had it in you, your time,
Your turn to ride the air current,
That first dizzying plummet
Above the vent of a Fish Tackle Store,
Dunes whipped by wind
Into sand storms, purple rafts of seaweed,
The sun caught and spangled.
Bonus!
Rio Vista
Golden hills of summer
as I drive over drawbridges
named for vice mayors and state senators
who cared enough to sit on committees,
the Sacramento River a blue ribbon
pinned to the land that’s green with crops
I don’t recognize, windmills and cows
move in the distance, power lines drape
their cabled arms pointing
toward Rio Vista where I watch
people fish, a woman wearing
a green halter and pink shorts
nods something
to the man next to her.