Four Feathers from Fall City

For days I walked the streets of Fall City,
an unusually grounded little town,
its farm houses egg yolk and pond blue painted,
dormer windows shy and alert,
old porches nodding off,
mowed lawns, red barn hen house,
chickens reciting poetry over their morning egg,
and I passed by two feathers
and didn't pick them up.

Today I stopped and looked into a tree
like a wide hand curving its fingers open
with five crows fidgeting into different poses.
They interrupted and complimented each other
constantly. One flew off. There on the ground
at my feet were four crow feathers.
Two long wing pinions and two wide tail feathers.
Blue spears. Traveled shadows.

I put them fanned out like onyx knives
on the wood table by the soft light and three
rock candles Heather gave me.

At night, they float over me singing
old Beatles songs, tapping lightly on the window,
forgetting their names, how they got here,

where they misplaced their
warm black bodies.



for Shoeless Joe,
the greatest one-and-a-half legged crow
I ever met.

October 6, 2009