Magpie
You line this gift of sky with falling arcs—
up, down, then lower down up again, down—
the form of flight less crucial than the flight
itself. You’ve not enough resplendent plumes
that might paint green a Guatemalan jungle.
Instead, you sketch the wind with pencil tail.
You look for shade in cottonwoods; in truth,
as stoic in the heat, you shade yourself
and keep your heart eclipsed by your own wings.
On posts, in tangled snags, along thin lines,
in self-silhouette you prophesy nothing
like the returning bright Quetzalcoatl.
But let me tell you plain and simple bird:
I long to touch your black and white feathers.
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Brian Palmer is inspired by the idea that everything lies in beauty along a continuum of emergence and decay and at any given moment has the capacity to inspire. Recently, he’s been published at The Ekphrastic Review, in Small Farmer’s Journal, and The Light Ekphrastic
