SUSAN DONAHUE
FLOCKS OF BIRDS
The last three evenings
just at sunset
while I sit at my patio table
cooling
in the twilight calm
flocks of birds
fly overhead
disturb my thoughts.
I watch them roll past the big cottonwood
just on the neighbor’s side of the backyard fence.
Last evening
most of them landed there
filling the glistening green tops
disappearing onto twigs I couldn’t see.
There must have been about a hundred of them.
The first evening
colors were distinct.
Blues irradiant behind the few white clouds.
Tonight the collection wasn’t plentiful.
They didn’t soar peremptorily.
Or at such constant height.
Or in such ardent waves.
The sky wasn’t so blue.
I wasn’t as thrilled.
I’ll discount
their riot
and clatter.
Forgetting them here
may advance other
such
surplus
periodic
bewilderments.
