What is it about Hope and birds?

Emily Dickinson wrote about them. So did Thomas Hardy.

When I don’t know what to write about, I write about birds. When hope seems more like a four-letter word than an anchor, I climb aboard and instead of bursting into flame, I burst into flights of poems.

 

 

 

GOLDEN-CHEEKED WARBLER

She can’t quiet down

not while spring is at its peak.

Where oak and cedar meet

she makes her home.

 

She sports white siderails

with black eyeliner.

Endangered, she’s a headliner

found along Edwards Plateau trails.

 

She’s never left Texas.

Her head, golden

as the sun.

Her song, should you hear it, stuns.

Her loves, they are reckless.

 

In tandem she sings gems. Her goal:

Sing cold.

Sing tired.

Sing hungry and whole.

 

– Megan Willome,

first published at The Way Back to Ourselves, 2024 Renaissance Literary Journal

now in Love and other Mysteries

 

More Books, More Poetry, and other Writing

Contact Me