The season has taken a stab

At despondency. Note the nickel-plated sky,

 

Its stony countenance. And the sallow grass,

How stunted its stature has become.

 

And all these dark birds: Starlings swarming,

Swirling like a tornado that keeps touching

 

Down. Crows crowding the fields,

Feeding on nothing but crumbs

 

Of cornstalks. The mourning dove, balancing

Its solo act on a telephone wire, crooning

 

Its Irish tune of lonesomeness and longing.

Looks like despair to me.

 

Except for those red-winged blackbirds

Flaunting their epaulets atop cattails.

 

Do you see them rise, then ride the back

Of the wind, scattering their clicks and clucks

 

Like seeds along the way?

They, too, witnessed the first dropped

 

Leaf, perceived how green withdrew

Its lovely face from the landscape.

     

So how do they do it, lifting their own

Hearts as they soar toward the clouds?

 

Don't they ever, like the rest of us,

Tire of transcending?

 

 

This poem first appeared in Cider Press Review (Spring 2009).

Used here with the author's permission.