Evolution is all very well but we’re no brighter
than a flash of wings and beak;
building our thin-walled shelters
of mud and straw and spit,
ditchgrass teacups nestled
in the highest of wind-shaken,
leaf-barren tree-fingers we
can find and entrusting them
with our fine-shelled,
blood-warm treasures,
and if that’s so—
if we are already kin in vulnerability—
then why not the rest?
That blue jay who looked just like a piece of paper as he plummeted,
and the swimming flutter he made to catch the current on dark-barred wings,
and send himself surging up again?
It’s one of those days where just in watching
I can understand the movement, could dictate the vocabulary into my bones,
if only I had the right muscle, flesh, and feathers.
Sidney Dritz is a former copywriter, current popcorn professional who finished her three-college tour of America at the University of Southern Maine. Her poetry appears in Glass Poetry Press’s #PoetsResist series and in “Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters,” and you can follow her work as it develops on twitter at @sidneydritz.
Blue Jay illustration by C.B. Auder.
Claw & Blossom 