Redwings

Maybe you've noticed that around here

red-winged blackbirds aren't rare,

but aren't seen often, either, and then, at distance,

banking away from roads as we pass.

But one morning, I saw a hundred,

more, feeding on seed I'd spread

under a line of pines planted

more than a hundred years before.

Almost at rest, their feathers folded close,

only their yellow wingbars

break their black bodies. But when, as they did,

all at once, they lifted, that red...

I've tried for a long time, and maybe should,

to tell you how the disembodied redwings

flared and vanished.

I've lost them in every telling.

So much for me. I could die now, anyway.

Could you? We will close our eyes

and rest, in case the blackbirds, in slow

motion, assume again the flames they are, and rise.