For The Birds

The birds eat the seeds I've left on the windowsills,

Fine dining that empties my pockets

But they know nothing of corporate greed.

They come after the rains, after the storms,

When there is no food left for them.

The little remains have washed down the drains

But I have restocked their pantry.

The seed is cool and dry and fresh and sprinkled

With bits of nutritional pellets to scare away

The lingering taste of illness on their beaks.

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They come with their loud screams,

Little twittering conversations that sound more

Like thank you than a scream by now

Because they were patient in teaching me

Exactly how to speak to them.

I am fluent in their compassionate gratitude,

The way they warn me, the apex predator,

Their friend of the hawk circling overhead.

I have learned how to warn them back.

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They come and drop feathers for me.

It took hardly any time for them to realize

They are the prize but they've misunderstood,

It isn't the plumage or the colors on their back

But the shine in their dark eyes that sometimes

Go honey in the afternoon sunlight.

It is the way they know my sneeze,

The songs I play, and the clack of my keys.

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They come to my windowboxes too and pluck

All of the bugs from my plants

Before the scoundrels have a chance to ruin

A year's good harvest or the flower blossoms.

They come to my garden and sit on its posts,

Guarding in their quiet way,

Watching as the sunflowers I've planted mature.

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They come to my tall grasses and nest

In the trees I have saved from storms

And splinted with the last of my own bandages.

The morning is filled with the sound of wings

Flapping through the sky, slow and lazy,

From bellies full of homegrown sunflower seeds.

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They bring their young to me,

Show off the little lives they have created,

And teach them that in this cold, cruel world

Of thunder and lightning and hawks and snakes,

There is a windowsill full of seed and a garden of flowers.

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Then, they come to me and they die.

They eat their fill and curl up quietly in the grass

Where they know I will find them and tuck them away

In a place as beautiful and respectful as the windowsill.

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They whisper their farewells to me as they sink limply

Into the grasses and the dirt, covered in bright petals,

Their thanks still gleaming in their eyes.

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They live here and they die here, both by choice,

And I only nurture the sentiment because this...

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This was always for the birds.