Maybe because the greats are gone.
Ella and Billie, even that grown girl of mine
posed in green satin by the baby grand
leg cocked at the knee, lips in a pucker.
Maybe because birds sing the sun into being,
put it to bed at night, and don’t have to
make sense of a woo-hee, wee-hoo,
whinny-whinny or pretty-pretty.
Maybe because year after year after year after year
they return –- look at them -– red-bellied,
white tailed, rufous-spotted, brindle-feathered,
that cardinal couple, I swear they’re the same.
Delicious illusion. Easy theology.
Not one of them fallen to feather and bone.
Barbara Conrad writes about the natural world, life’s personal lessons and the occasional (somewhat restrained) political rant.
