"...oh, nevermore..."

tornado sirens wail like keening widows
at a wake, while rain falls in sideways
sheets washing windows deep under the
eaves for the first time...ever....

I look out and she is sitting there unhurried
unharried, un shaken...

what does she know, I wonder, as she dips
her beak for one more grain of millet, one more
black sunflower seed...that if she drops it, may
spring into the tall promise of a Kansas prairie
in August...one pixel of summer gold against a
backdrop of heat-shimmering blue Midwestern
sky...

does she know that to be taken by the wind is
to dance unbidden, that to fight the storm is
to deny the power of God to lift her higher, and
higher still, upon the thermals of something
swift and stronger than her own wings could
bear...

what does she know that brings such peace...

as she sits on the edge of the feeder and selects
another tiny seed...what does she know...that
if I listen I might hear...

"a strain, low, sad, and sweet whose measure
bind the power...
...'gainst which the winds and waves can shock
oh, nevermore..."
-M.B. Eddy