“upon a dead bird“

I did not know your name
or your song
or how long
you have been gone

for I missed you my friend
your peak in flight
now laid here
on unmarked ground
to never know
your voice
or of your sound
your sweet repertory
rests in silence now
the wind animates plumes
like half staff flags
placed upon
this earthen tomb

so for this moment
I take pause
wish you safe passage
into that good night.

notes… we have all seen the occasional dead animal here and there, not sure why this struck me to write, it just did, so,  maybe because I walk by this spot everyday to the office door and notice the little local flocks of birds in their home among the local planted landscaping bushes surrounding what becomes my home most of the time to be honest.  You get used to the little one scratching out existence in this urban-ish environment (Hackensack is very commercial and has the most polluted river in the country).  I cherish my little friends, they help center me, on a bad day, I can walk outside among the cigarette butt ‘garden’ and see how nature deals with everything, it just does, with blind ambition, and there might be a lesson there, if I wasn’t some dumb human.

and as always, any thoughts, critical barbs, long diatribes, structural critiques, letters of hate written using the blood of virgins… all is appreciated if not encouraged even.  I do this to hone my craft and myself, and unfortunately I can not escape this form as currently constructed, so I have to rely on outside forces for feedback, as confident as I am I only know mostly everything… (wink)