besmilr brigham

A Day When the Bare Trees Are Full of Fluttering

birds have taken over our chicken runs

flocking back against the change
sparlings
to sweep echoing wings
down the unused chimney brick rafters
they flow

beneath weather paper
a colony of usurpers screaming in the barn
and mating pairs
come back from Mexico--as we have come,

deep woods feathers
stained hard as jungle leaves
                           raging the fields
parrot sprays of color:
we sit

     cold in the house
watching their dull efforts
hunting for little left quills to put in their
nests

--besmilr brigham

fr. Heaved from the Earth (Knopf, 1971)

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