Member Poem

 
You Missed Two Young Bald Eagles
Practicing Flight at Dawn over our Cove
 
 
You will soon miss our eagles, river, tides, cove,
great blue herons, gulls, visiting cormorant,
even our aviary-worth of inland birds—
 
robins, cardinals, doves, jays, red-headed
woodpecker pair who normally pass through
en route north or south, feed and leave, yet
 
this summer they hang around for the chow;
plus numerous sparrows God’s too busy
to look after so gives me the job;
 
flocks who scatter droppings, crumbs, seeds
over our balcony, though you won’t miss
squirrels who clean up whatever birds miss…
 
You will miss eternally complaining about
invisible crumbs, visible dust, ants, apricots
you can’t see because they are right here
 
before your eyes, and all else you see or
don’t but, like everything else you choose
to keep you awake half the night, bug you.
           
You’ll miss complaining about: my purse
which won’t shut, my cluttered 1998 Subaru;
my swiping clothes you wore day and night;
 
your orange peels I snatch to mulch my
garden which fed us ten years but now you
won’t let me plant as you want more lawn
 
to mow: grass is short enough, but you
must see if the mower starts; my flawed
knowledge of history, my liberal politics—
 
You will, in short, miss living…So
will I, along with all else I cannot
live without, including you…