They show up in April with the cowbirds
and the red wings, all the icterids returning.
By June they’re hoarding the feeders,
the birdbaths and the lawn, clucking
in the trees and teaching their young.
By August they’ve returned to the parking lot
at the grocery store, handing the keys to the yard
back to the chickadees and titmice who,
more deferential, somehow seem a little
sweeter than their noisy cousins who only
summer here, throw their cash around and
leave without learning the culture or our ways.
James Brush, Texas, USA
3 comments:
James Brush is a writer and teacher living in Austin, TX where he teaches English in a juvenile correctional facility. He published his first novel, A Place Without a Postcard, in 2003. His poems have been published by Postal Poetry and A Handful of Stones, and his essays have been published in The Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing and Good Gosh Almighty!
This left a smile on my face, and a whole new appreciation for the visitors in my own yard!
I hate Grackles. You wrote wonderfully why that is so.
Wonderful poem.
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