By the hundreds tundra swans descend
like parachutes deploying
in blizzard snow and wind.
They tumble through the air
then canopy their wings
and toggle best they can
in whiteout conditions.
Seeing them is like hallucinating,
except they come every year
to the same fields behind a police academy
in Aylmer, Ontario,
and sometimes in bitter springs
they come out of the northern sky
like a late blizzard,
like driving snow
and meet the earth running.
Birds
Swans at Sunset
The white boats glide out beyond the reeds
Nudging the black boats of their shadows
For one moment of brilliance before it is night
Picture of an American Bittern
Booming so loudly you are startled,
A blast of air and then silence,
Wind followed by an image of wind:
The bittern rippling to a breathless wave,
Its head adrift in the drifting reeds…
Crow Feather Totem I
I saw a crow feather on the road
And the sun shining in that precise shape.
I was drawn to a crow feather on the road
Until I was far from home.
I found a crow feather on the road
Like a murder of crows born of nothingness.
I picked up a crow feather
And turned into my shadow.
I carried the crow feather home
And my awareness was lifted.
I brought the feather home
And the power went out.
I placed it over my hawk feather
And night covered day.
My totem grew to include owl and raven.
Now my shadow has wings,
No one takes this journey but me.
And the sun shining in that precise shape.
I was drawn to a crow feather on the road
Until I was far from home.
I found a crow feather on the road
Like a murder of crows born of nothingness.
I picked up a crow feather
And turned into my shadow.
I carried the crow feather home
And my awareness was lifted.
I brought the feather home
And the power went out.
I placed it over my hawk feather
And night covered day.
My totem grew to include owl and raven.
Now my shadow has wings,
No one takes this journey but me.
In a Gallery of Birds
The mind is brushed by sparrow wings.
Hart Crane
All shadows of a kind cross the atlas of the mind.
Alone or with fledglings in realistic settings
The ghosts of those birds migrated into words.
The longer we stayed the sound of a glade.
Windows doubled as skies for eternity in their eyes.
Even for a feather it is a heavy tether.
In each nest eggs at rest.
Such stillness grows like flight in repose
Mounted there in flying air.
What is seeming if nature is dreaming?
What is death to a hummingbird’s breath?
In an eagle’s gaze soar endless days.
A glass case sings it breaks with wings.
All field marks fade light goes into shade.
Salvatore Ala 