When Grounded Were My Wings

When Grounded Were My Wings

L. Edgar Otto    Saturday, 13 April, 2013  02:27:38


A week outside by the river,
between my hideout, branches bare
Between foliage and snow cover
a rain of yellow leaves on my tent
After the deep frost, at fall survived

An eagle, when I grew up vanished
never to see one so they prophesied
Now startling me in its fall and combat
talons locked too close, cannot see me
I stretch my legs, laundromat chair asleep

The coffee shop too hot to stay long
to unthaw, offend coeds, my meaty sweat
Ducks peep all night, delayed migrations
like pipers picking at the shore I walk on
Snow that seems to me a beach of sand

Looking skyward in the night Orion and Scorpio
tells the chase of seasons as I kept time before
The belt of Venus dawns by our starry satellites
for two days now, far from the news, something wrong
No blinking beacons in the sky, no ever present contrails

Why are the birds silent too, the cacophony nasty
murder of crows, echoes in my head, morning drowsiness?
The little bird across from me on the picnic table each
morning going on about something as I write lost poems
Shielded against paper damp dew, my dropping tears?

Two students with paper airplanes crash them set on fire
"Aren't you a little old to be doing that?" I asked
"He has not heard." one said to the other -  I walked back
free from jurisdiction under my bridge as shadows on the
Sidewalk of our flags showed no colors but shared silence.

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