The Bird Book

The Bird Book

I need a book so I can read
About the birds that come to feed
Just outside my window ledge
And out beyond the garden hedge.

They fly and flutter down to eating.
Their fragile wings slowly beating
To put them down in just one place
That they pick out as their own space.

Then all skip and hop and fluff of feather
To keep them warm against the weather,
They feed themselves with great attention
And minor bursts of brief dissension.

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And now I've seen them in my book,
Their names and shapes and when I look
Out upon the swirling flock
And hear the chimes of four o'clock,
I wonder if they traveled far to reach my
window on this day.
It is very hard to say.
And then I wonder, as they traveled, if they took
A tiny little reference book
To keep them on the proper way.
It is truly hard to say.

BY: Darvin E. Schroeder
December, 1989