Birds

I must be getting older
because I like birds, although
I'm still working like a starving woodpecker
and not home staring out the windows all day.

I like little flycatchers, crows (I always liked those),
diving swallows, the bush full of restless sparrows,
light brown lady cardinals with their orange beaks,
mockingbirds, the one that sounds like a cat,
the rising songs at dusk and at dawn.

When I stop and consider it,
the feather is one hell of a design,
a hollow tube threaded with branching barbs,
to inhabit wherever there is air.

Sometimes when birds fly, my follicles tingle.
One day last week, I cocked my head like a robin,
like I was keeping busy in paradise.