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Marina Read Weiss: Birdwatching for the Intuitive

March 30, 2013 by PBQ

The bird—      not five feet away—   regards
                       us(, not without
                       fidgeting).

               Its settling
                       is unsettling:
                                              tangerine belly, gray wings
                                                           furled. A precise peak
                                       over which it knows the world.

                                                           What is it?
                                                           when did I cease to know?
                                                           litanies of ignorance accelerate
                                                                                   with the early summer heat
                                                                                               like our hands dampening
                                                                                   and I let go

                                                                                               (look away as I swipe the hand on
                                                                                   my shorts; then you swipe;       my watch has
                                                                                   slow knowing hands.)
                       It is
                                       and isn’t stopping,
                                                           pivoting,
                                                           hopped-up
                                                                   on bird-speed.
                                                                                   What does it want?
                                                           What species of city thing      am I?

               Behind it, the recumbent hill knows itself
                                                           from itself.
                       Did you mean this could go on forever           in a good way?
                                       I am still or was never a robin-watcher,
                                                           a wannabe.
                                                                   It cocks its head.
                       Or an oriole, you say,
               another yellow feathered thing.                      It has always been or isn’t hopeless.

                       I hung my fingers
                       loose, a hedged bet.
                                                           It looks unperturbed
                                       by our dearth of ornithological knowledge.
 
               The present stands still.
                                       No one cared how the watch held its hands
                                       as we walked up the hill.

Filed Under: Contributors 86, Issue 86, Poetry, Poetry 86 Tagged With: Contributors 86, Marina Read Weiss, Poetry, Poetry 86

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