Support and Coping with Cancer   /   Creative Inspiration

Bird Feeder

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Ellen Goldsmith
From: No Pine Tree in This Forest Is Perfect. Sleepy Hollow, NY: Slapering Hol Press,1997
Last Modified: May 6, 2003

Birds land, take seed
and fly to the bare dogwood tree
One house finch flaps its wings, hovering
waiting for an empty perch
red breast and head pleasing my eyes

When I returned from the hospital
I asked my husband to fill the bird feeder
I wanted to sit with myself
watching the birds, listening
to their sounds
constant as the ocean
Refusing, he said "Birds need
to feed themselves in summer."

If I fed that sentence to the birds
would they drop it to the ground
or take it in their beaks and crush it?