Thanksgiving Day 2020
Wanted to speak their names
of those birds
everywhere
feasting upon part ripe cherries of arbutus
mislearning songs of their fathers
swiping beak, once left,
once right,
upon dead fingers of the parched sapling
that grew above the laurel
with purple berries
those birds are gorging on.
But my stupid eyes don't know their name
(except sparrow, towhee, junko
some wren wagging upon nylon)
((which dissuades deer from scarfing
our celeriac)).
The others are too zagged
bursting
declaring in a tongue
I bothered not to name.
If we reduce all feather to bird
all small to bug
all not us to creature
all that roots to plant,
What's left to name and know?
Only every quirk of person
flying up
an endless scroll of face.
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