If one day birds don’t alight on the sycamores
outside our window, if they avoid
our entire stretch of 73rd Street
so that the whole block surrenders
to the cacophony of garbage trucks & their side-riders,
delivery drivers, the dog walkers whose rambunctious
barking charges pull them toward Broadway;
if pigeons, sparrows, & starlings forsake us,
might we not notice,
as the coffee maker sets to work &
we pour syrup on waffles,
the quiet beneath it all? Might we not miss
the chirp & chatter,
the way a couple separated by a business trip
misses the snoring,
the uneasy touches at night?
Might we then
go outside with old bread, with seed,
to entice them back? Would there be rapture
or weeping in that rush & flutter of wings?
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 19, Issue 2.
Gerry LaFemina’s numerous award-winning collections of poetry include The Parakeets of Brooklyn, Vanishing Horizon, and Little Heretic. His collection of essays on poets and prosody, Palpable Magic, came out in 2015 from Stephen F. Austin University Press and his textbook, Composing Poetry: A Guide to Writing Poems and Thinking Lyrically was recently released from Kendall Hunt.
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