Grackles
for Bob Philips
I think they must all have been
heavy equipment operators or
veteran farmers in their past lives.
It's the way they walk,
I imagine their lunch-pail swagger,
the irridescent grease and oil stains
on thick cotton work blues,
the metallic sheen of daily blue jeans.
They rolled when they walked
back then, too, favoring distressed
joints and muscles wracked by use.
Still, their eyes did glint and shine
with avian brightness under buzzing
fluorescent tubes and sunlight hung
by chains from ceiling or sky.
Now they wander lawns, heads cocked,
purple tongues in the garden lapping up
windfall mulberries, glittering insects,
seeds, even bits of stone and metal,
singing their guttural odes in choruses.
No human memory troubles their minds,
you can see it in their eyes, round and
bright as rivets in a pair of bib overalls.
for Bob Philips
I think they must all have been
heavy equipment operators or
veteran farmers in their past lives.
It's the way they walk,
I imagine their lunch-pail swagger,
the irridescent grease and oil stains
on thick cotton work blues,
the metallic sheen of daily blue jeans.
They rolled when they walked
back then, too, favoring distressed
joints and muscles wracked by use.
Still, their eyes did glint and shine
with avian brightness under buzzing
fluorescent tubes and sunlight hung
by chains from ceiling or sky.
Now they wander lawns, heads cocked,
purple tongues in the garden lapping up
windfall mulberries, glittering insects,
seeds, even bits of stone and metal,
singing their guttural odes in choruses.
No human memory troubles their minds,
you can see it in their eyes, round and
bright as rivets in a pair of bib overalls.
I love this poem. I feel very close to it. This is a poem that reaches out to embrace the reader in a hug.
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