bird bellies I sit here humanly lump of groundling that I am and what I see is bird bellies for the barn swallows have returned and my god they fly so, they fly so it brings on tears their creamy feather-bellies like fast-melting smears of butter against a sky that is newly, softly, contemplating becoming blue their slipping ways through the air pulling my heart out beyond my ribs my heart like a hungry cat, yearning to chase, pulling tight on the leash of my veins and the starlings, they’re frenetic
every dark-plumed, spicy-eyed movement a nest-building manifesto every squabbling squawk a yellow-beak curdling shriek of warrior intent to survive every thin-black-belly-flashing swoop a mark scrawled on the wall of the world: check, another day lived and of course the robins sprint in their gangs, bellies of rose charging straight at their futures and the redwing blackbirds are chanting, their bellies pumping, little bellows of honey-song and the hummingbirds run the skies like our thoughts gone loose, jewel-feather flicks of life tracing signs in the air, their bellies full of fire and nectar and just now there was a pair of ducks they arrived stage left on their grand, final turn toward that tiny silver landing-sheet of pond their wings splayed as far as a duck can reach their toes spread wide - feet unfurled before them like wild orange warning flags their heads turned over their shoulders to spot their safe watery ground oh they flew like kites with duck hearts opening toward me and everything else and then they disappeared stage left having authoritatively traced their duck arc of focus of flight of trust of wing of spreading of chest and of a deep anticipation of earth that lives in all bellies even in those of birds
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