Avias Sward

image borrowed from bing

Avias Sward

“Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men

is primarily based on mutual trust.”

--Albert Einstein

It is early morning,

and a light fog lies

like a holy shawl over 

San Francisco bay.

The sun peeks its fiery brow

up over the jagged lip

of the Sierra Nevada to the east;

most of the skyscrapers downtown

find some of their glass catching

searing rays of fire--

orange, yellow, & violet.

Flashes of tiny green wing their way

from the dozens of parks

and secret nesting places

all over that part of the city.

Larger than sparrows,

but smaller than pigeons,

these strong green-tinted fliers

darting in and out of the palm fronds

and thick grey-green deciduous leaves

are red-crowned Conures--

small but mighty wild parrots.

The reddish feathers on their heads,

and the red slash around their feral eyes

seems to deepen in color

as the sun’s early shards

catch them flying eastward.

Alcatraz winks white across

the narrow waist of the bay,

as the sea breeze picks up--

creating white caps

and swirling wind snakes across

the disturbed surface of the water.

In the near distance,

the Golden Gate bridge

is clearing itself of low clouds

as stiff winds blow the morning mists

off its red steel superstructure & cables.

Riding the thermals & twisting

through the breakfast breezes,

three lone Conures become seven,

then twelve, then fifty--some

invisible instinct guiding them,

letting them congregate into

a noisy squawking flock--

like some living feathered sky design,

one arial beast with many hearts,

soaring, beating their blurred wings;

moving as one mass, yet barely

held together with its configuration

shifting, while maintaining itself

as one avian articulated body

bending gracefully

and thrusting itself through the air--

its leaders making sudden

sharply banked turns, where

the out flyers had to swing wide

and strain to keep up,

just before the formation tightened, flying

as one tremendous throb of viridescence

past the Cafe Trieste, whizzing past

the stark white obelisk of the Coit Tower;

nearly a perfect lesson for

the struggling partisan throngs below. 

Glenn Buttkus

January 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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