Leave the binoculars behind.
What good has bringing birds closer
brought them, anyway?

Let species spring
unidentified branch
to branch

and catapult
into the scrambled alphabet
of clouds.

Let wings alone
be sufficient, a glint of indigo,
dusk’s fluted calling

spiraling to earth
like a handful of leaves,
the feathered thing before you.

May the names of all thirty-six warblers
—if you ever had them—
be the first to go.

May nothing fly from
the field guide of your mind
when iridescent emerald zipping

zips by a Kool-aid-red feeder
hooked like bait
on the neighbor’s gutter.

May you hover sipping nectar
from scarlet trumpets mid-flight
in nobody’s garden.

This poem first appeared in the Edison Literary Review.
Used here with the author’s permission.