Thursday, January 5, 2023: Robert S. King's "Bird's Eye View of Flying South"

  © 2023 marie c lecrivain

Robert S. King lives in Athens, GA. His poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, including Atlanta Review, California Quarterly, Chariton Review, Hollins Critic, Kenyon Review, Main Street Rag, Midwest Quarterly, Negative Capability, Southern Poetry Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review. He has published eight poetry collections, most recently Developing a Photograph of God (Glass Lyre Press, 2014) and Messages from Multiverses (Duck Lake Books, 2020). His personal website is www.robertsking.info.

Bird’s Eye View of Flying South

 

In the wild fall of paradise they rise,

rainbows of feathers and leaves

free-flapping on an autumn breeze,

flocks streaking the sky

on a southbound, fleeing wind.

 

But across the shadow border

of skyscrapers, birds weave

through mazes of power lines

and windshields. Almost captive,

they seem not to know

which way the smog-wind blows

or which way is south.

 

Among the most civilized

in air-conditioned comfort-cages,

lovebirds peck at peanuts

and squawk about clipped wings,

but not a peep about the bars

behind which they've always lived.

 

 © 2023 Robert S. King