birdsong
pours through the open window.
I cannot know
if the suet I hung yesterday
fills them with joy,
or if, the handsome male in the maple
is wooing the female
in the condominium next door,
or if, it is simply
dawn that fills them with happiness–
nuthatch and goldfinch
perched on the feeder,
orchard bees swooning,
deep in trumpets of columbine,
the way I am lifted
out of darkness by a Mozart aria
to a place of rapture.
All these avian melodies
soaring from the throats
of feathered angels
that make a man want to fly.
Arthur Ginsberg is a neurologist and poet from Seattle. He holds an MFA in poetry from Pacific University, and has studied with Galway Kinnell and Dorianne Laux. He is the author of 5 books of poetry and 2 chapbooks. He aspires to publication in the Ravens Perch.
