~ Flight of Birds ~

Birds go one by one

in the winter

A single raven hunched brooding

in a barren tree

An owl fluffed against the cold

in the high, dark shadows of a barn

Some go in flocks

a massed thunder of wings

to bear them up and away

Wheeling through the sky

like a handful of pepper grains

thrown aloft

Calling their way

in V’s of mournful courage

toward the promise

of a distant and problematic survival

In the winter

raptors draw apart unto themselves

songbirds flee away

All the colors of the feathered world

reduced to the brutal simplification

of prey and predator

leaving a drift of scattered feathers

borne on the cooler wind

© 2006

Carole Mathys